Review of LingQ as a PALL after one year of regular use

Abstract

This article sets out to analyse LingQ, an online platform for language learning created in 2007 by the polyglot Steve Kaufmann. Framed in CALL, an auto-ethnographicapproach will be used to examine the author’s experience of platforms and apps for language learning (PALL) during a year of autonomous study learning French on theplatform. The study will try to demonstrate the alignment of LingQ’s theoretical underpinnings with some of the main language learning theories which, at first, mightseem incompatible. The analysis will show how the platform supports the learners’ immersion in authentic texts, providing comprehensible input according to their interests while promoting vocabulary and grammar acquisition through noticing. In addition, it will explore how it leverages the role of culture as a booster of integrative motivation.