Disclosure first. We make Kilo Lingo Classrooms, one of the tools compared below, and it is labelled wherever it appears. We earn nothing from any other link on this page, and none of the other products here pays us.
What Duolingo for Schools did
Duolingo for Schools was a free teacher layer on top of the free Duolingo app. A teacher made a classroom, pupils joined it with a code from their own Duolingo accounts, and the teacher could set assignments (such as an XP target by a date) and watch each pupil's activity and progress.
Its strength was that it cost nothing and pupils already liked the app. Its weakness was the course underneath: Duolingo teaches its own sequence, not your scheme of work or an exam board's word list, so a Year 10 set could be busy and still not be revising the words the GCSE paper tests.
What is going, and when
Per Duolingo's own notice, as it stood in September 2026:
- No new teachers. New Duolingo for Schools accounts and first classrooms can no longer be created.
- Existing teachers can carry on until 31 July 2027, including adding students and creating further classrooms during the transition.
- After 31 July 2027 Duolingo for Schools will no longer be available.
- The Duolingo app stays, free, for students and teachers. It is the teacher dashboard and assignments that go.
Duolingo's stated reason is that the teacher tools did not see the same level of use as the app. Coverage of the announcement: Class Central and PiunikaWeb. If Duolingo changes the dates, its notice is the one to trust over this page.
A migration checklist
- Record what you need before 31 July 2027. Progress for reports, who completed what, anything a parents' evening will ask about. Check Duolingo's help centre for what it lets you export; we have not tested an export ourselves, so do not assume one exists.
- Write down what you actually used. Assignments with due dates? Weekly progress? The leaderboard? Most teachers used two things, and those two are your shopping list.
- Decide whether you want a course or a toolbox. A course means pupils follow a sequence someone else built and you set chunks of it. A toolbox means you build or find sets and games yourself. Both are valid; mixing them up is how departments end up paying for a tool nobody opens.
- Check sign-in. Most secondary pupils have a school email through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Ask whether your IT team blocks outside apps from Google sign-in, and whether outside email reaches pupils, because sign-up codes arrive by email.
- Check age limits. Several tools are 13 and over unless the school consents on pupils' behalf. That decides whether Years 7 and 8 can use it at all.
- Ask your DPO early. Where the data is stored, whether the supplier signs a data processing agreement, and what teachers can see. It is much easier in June than in the first week of September.
- Trial with one class before the summer term. Department budgets are usually set then, and a trial with real homework is worth more than any comparison page, this one included.
- Tell pupils their app still works. Anyone with a Duolingo streak keeps it; losing the class view does not touch their own account.
The alternatives at a glance
| Tool | What it is | A course to follow? | Homework you can track | Live class games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kilo Lingo Classrooms (ours) | Language course with a teacher layer | Yes, including AQA GCSE | Yes, marked automatically | Yes |
| Blooket | Quiz game platform | No, you build or find sets | Yes, homework mode | Yes |
| Gimkit | Quiz game platform | No, you build or find kits | Yes, assignments | Yes |
| Quizlet | Flashcard sets | No, you build or find sets | With the paid teacher plan | Yes, Quizlet Live |
| Conjuguemos | Verb and vocabulary practice | Partly, graded activities | Yes | Some |
| Language Nut | Language platform, school licence | Yes, many languages | Yes, auto-marked | Some |
| Linguascope | Language games and activities, school licence | Partly, topic by topic | With a school subscription | Some |
| Textivate | Activities generated from your own texts | No, you bring the text | With a school subscription | No |
| Wordwall | Activity templates you fill in | No, you build or find them | Yes | Some |
"Some" means the tool has classroom game modes, but live play is not its main job. Features change; each tool's own site is the authority.
Kilo Lingo Classrooms (ours)
Declared interest: this is our product. Kilo Lingo is a frequency-first language course, and Classrooms is the teacher layer on top of it. Pupils join with a class code, a link or an email invite, and get the whole of Kilo Lingo while they are in your class.
- The course: AQA GCSE vocabulary courses for Spanish, French and Mandarin, Foundation then Higher, plus frequency-first courses in the site's other languages. Mandarin is answered in pinyin, so nobody needs a Chinese keyboard.
- Homework: set a lesson, game, review, quiz or story with a due date. A grid shows every pupil against every task, late in amber and missing in red, with a CSV export, and each pupil's weak words.
- Live: gender match and meaning match on the projector, joined with a PIN or a QR code, and a present mode for stepping through a lesson's words. The words the class missed become homework in one tap.
- Paper: every lesson prints, worksheets with answer keys included, laid out chapter by chapter on pages such as the Spanish teaching resources.
- The catches: AQA only for now (Edexcel and Eduqas are not mapped), no German GCSE course yet, and pupils must be 13 or over, so Year 9 upwards. Data is stored with AWS in the United States.
- Price: a 7-day free trial for up to 3 pupils with no card, then $15 a month for a tutor (up to 10 students) or $50 a month for a teacher (up to 40 pupils), or yearly with 2 months free. In the UK that is £11.99 and £39.99. For a whole department, email hello@kilolingo.com for a quote.
See how Kilo Lingo Classrooms works.
Blooket
A quiz game platform: you pick or build a question set, then run it in one of many game modes, live in class or as homework. Pupils love it, and the free tier is generous.
The catch for languages is that there is no course behind it. The quality of a Blooket lesson is the quality of the set, and sets made by other teachers vary a lot. Good for a Friday plenary; it will not plan your term.
Gimkit
Similar territory to Blooket, pitched at secondary classrooms: live games where correct answers earn in-game money to spend, plus assignments with due dates. The paid Pro plan unlocks most modes and the homework features.
Same caveat: you supply the content. Gimkit is excellent at making twenty minutes of retrieval practice feel like a game, and silent on what the twenty minutes should contain.
Quizlet
The default flashcard tool. Enormous library of shared sets (including plenty labelled AQA GCSE), a study mode, and Quizlet Live for team games in class. Fuller progress tracking for teachers sits on the paid teacher plan.
Shared sets are only as good as whoever made them: typos, missing accents and odd translations are common, so check a set before you set it. Quizlet is a toolbox, not a course.
Conjuguemos
A long-standing, no-frills practice site for Spanish, French, German, Italian and more, strongest on verb conjugation and vocabulary drills, with graded activities and a teacher view of results. The free tier covers a lot.
It looks its age, and it is practice rather than teaching, but for drilling the preterite until it sticks it does exactly what it says.
Language Nut
A UK-built language platform sold to schools on a whole-school licence, covering a wide range of languages with vocabulary, reading and exam-style practice, auto-marked assignments and progress tracking. Pricing is by quote.
The nearest thing here to a like-for-like school replacement: a course plus homework tracking. The trade-off is procurement, since it is a school purchase rather than something a teacher can start on a Tuesday.
Linguascope
A veteran of UK MFL departments: interactive games and activities for beginner to intermediate learners across many languages, sold as a school subscription. It is strongest at beginner and intermediate level, which makes it a Key Stage 3 favourite.
Useful breadth and reliable content; less of a homework-tracking tool than Duolingo for Schools was, and not built around a GCSE word list.
Textivate
Paste in a text or a word list and Textivate generates dozens of activities from it: unjumbling, gap fills, matching, and more. With a school subscription you can set them as homework and see results.
It is the best tool here for teachers who already have their own texts and sentence builders. It does nothing until you give it material, which is either its strength or its weakness depending on your week.
Wordwall
A template engine: choose an activity type (match up, quiz, anagram, wheel, and so on), fill in your content, and share it for class or homework, with printable versions too. The free plan caps how many activities you can keep; paid plans lift the cap and add more templates.
Brilliant for quick, varied starters. Like the other toolboxes, it needs you to supply the content and check the shared activities you borrow.
So which should you pick?
- You want a course your pupils follow, with homework that marks itself and live games in one place: Kilo Lingo Classrooms (ours, Year 9 upwards) or a Language Nut school licence.
- You want a free game for Fridays: Blooket, Gimkit or Wordwall.
- You want flashcards and a huge library: Quizlet, and check the sets.
- You want verb drilling: Conjuguemos.
- You teach from your own texts: Textivate.
Most departments will end up with one course-style tool and one game tool. The mistake to avoid is buying three game tools and calling it a curriculum.