I'm your host Steve Hatherly.

And my guest today is Mr. Luke Jones.

Who was a teacher in Korea for I would say a brief stint, but it wasn't really that brief.

I think uh Luke told me, as we were chatting before we got started today, it was for a

total of eight years.

But Luke did make the decision to return to his home country of Wales.

And in 2018, that's when Luke decided to develop a YouTube channel.

A very popular idea with people these days.

But what's more interesting is the focus of the channel.

And we'll get to that in just a moment.

Well after achieving a pretty decent level of success uh subscribers in the range of

around 10 000 people, then it exploded to great success.

And now Luke has over 200,000 subscribers.

And as I just alluded to, his content deals with the Duolingo English Test.

And that will be the focus of our chat today.

Welcome to Speak English Fluently, Luke Jones.

It's great to meet you.

Sir.

Yeah.

thank you for the kind introduction.

And it's good to meet you and it's a pleasure to be on this show with you.

Wonderful.

So you were you were yourself in Korea for, did I get that right, eight years in total?

Yeah, I was eight almost nine years.

I lived in a small city called Changweon, first.

Then, I moved to Seoul where I got my say my full-time job at a university.

And that was brilliant.

I actually loved my time there.

I learned so much.

I met so many great people.

Wonderful.

After you returned to Wales, you decided to make the YouTube channel.

Was that upon the return to Wales?

Or was that something you were thinking about during your time here in Korea?

Yeah, that was before, actually.

So I moved to Wales about six months ago but as you mentioned, I started my channel

in 2018.

Basically, I just saw the trend of online education.

Even in 2018, it looked like lots of teachers were going online with their courses uh their

lectures so on and I just, yeah, I wanted to be a part of that.

I try to keep myself, you know, forward thinking and being as innovative as possible so I thought

that'd be a good thing to try out.

I started off slowly like everyone who has ever tried YouTube will know.

Of course.

It's a very hard - hard slug to start but you know after a while it does,

if you if you're good and you try hard, you can become successful on the channel as a

teacher especially.

That's great advice for any uh aspiring YouTuber I think, not just a language teacher.

So what was it?

I'm curious to know what was it that that made it happen and maybe you don't even know

but the subscribers were around 10,000 which is pretty impressive I mean

Yeah.

A lot of YouTubers say it's really hard to get to even a thousand subscribers but you

got to 10 and then all of a sudden, 'boom'.

So do you know what it was?

Yeah, I do.

Yeah, it's really clear if you look into my analytics.

I changed my subject matter.

So I was doing general English, the same stuff as on this Shaw English channel.

A lot of other channels do the same type of content.

And I was doing the same, but then, I differentiated myself… differentiated myself by focusing

on the new Duolingo English Test.

And it was just a, you know, it's a popular niche without that many content creators.

So that's basically it.

And then the name… and the name of your channel is?

Teacher Luke and then hyphen Duolingo English Test.

Nothing, nothing very crazy about it.

But you know, yeah.

Very straightforward.

We'll get that… we'll get that information from you again at the… the end of our chat.

Well… well let's get into it then.

The main point of our chat for today.

So the Duolingo English Test.

Now, I'm familiar with Duolingo.

I myself have used it.

I studied French in Canada in school.

After living in Korea for a long time, I wanted to brush up on my French.

And I went to Duolingo to do that.

But I didn't know that there was something very specific for Duolingo that being an English

Test.

So can you tell us just in general what that is?

Yeah, sure so the Duolingo English Test is basically a new way to certify your English

level.

So it's very similar to the other popular Tests - the IELTS and TOEFL.

So if you want… if a student, an international student, wants to study in the U.S., Canada,

U.K., Australia, you name it, then they need to certify their English using a proficiency

exam.

So the Duolingo Test is the newest proficiency Test out there.

It's not that new, actually.

So it's about five years old uh which is relatively new but still not not… not that new.

However, it was during the coveted pandemic that this test became really popular.

How long have.

you mentioned.

uh IELTS and TOEFL, those I guess IELTS is mainly popular in the U.K. if I'm correct.

And then TOEFL, that's right um perhaps internationally, IELTS is internationally recognized as well.

Those have been around for a really long time, right?

Very long time, yeah.

I don't know exactly.

It's a very long time.

um it's hard to say I don't…

I don't know exactly how long they've been around for.

But yeah, they're very well established.

And they have a really good reputation.

Right… and rightly so.

They're very good tests.

But the Duolingo English Test is relatively new, even though it's been five years.

Relatively speaking, it's not necessarily a long time.

How is it different?

How does it differentiate itself from the IELTS and the TOEFL Test?

Yeah, there are actually there are so many differences.

But there are three main differences I think I should talk about.

So the first one is that this exam is far more affordable and accessible to students.

The IELTS and TOEFL, they're quite expensive.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but they're, oh god, $200, $300 somewhere in that range

depending on what country you take it in.

And that's a lot of money for a lot of students, right?

The Duolingo English Test, on the other hand, is only $49.

So in that case, is far more affordable.

It's much more accessible because it's only a computer-based test.

You don't need to go to a test center to take this exam.

You just do it, uh, you just need to find a quiet room and get, uh, you know, get your

computer out with good internet access and then you're good to go.

You can take the Duolingo Test...

Sorry to interrupt you.

You can take that four times… uh… and take the TOEFL Test or the IELTS Test one

time.

Yeah, exactly right.

And that leads to…

Okay oh sorry yeah I want to talk a bit more about the accessibility because I think for

people like you and I who live in very developed countries, the idea of going to a test center

to take an exam is not that hard right.

We live… we can easily get to one maybe within an hour or two.

But for a lot of poorer students, let's say in other developing countries, uh… that's…

that's sometimes a really big challenge to get to a test center.

Right?

They might have to travel a day or two days and use you know a lot of money to get there

so… the fact that they that the Duolingo Test

is done at home, on their computer, that's actually a really big deal and it's game changing

in my mind for a lot of poorer students around the world.

Well that, and I think it would encourage students to take the test perhaps more often

than they might take the IELTS or the TOEFL Test because, number one, it's cheaper, as

you mentioned, you know you could take you could take the IELTS or the TOEFL once and

take the Duolingo Test four times.

Exactly.

But for other students, just that motivation of having to…

It's like going to the gym almost sometimes, right, you know.

I…

I…

I really want to take the test this time, but I'd have to go all the way hundreds

of miles to get there…

where you could take the Duolingo English Test in your living room, in your in your

underwear, if you wanted to.

You could actually could do that.

And the test is much shorter.

It takes about an hour.

Whereas the IELTS and TOEFL, they tend to take all day if you include traveling and,

you know, all the other stuff.

So the universities…

um… around the world, when we're talking about certification for students…

um…

Of course IELTS is accepted.

Of course TOEFL is accepted.

But what about the acceptance with Duolingo the English Test, only being around for five

years or so, is it widely accepted by universities…

English-speaking countries uh universities around the world?

Yeah.

That's a really important question for a lot of test takers.

Why take a test if the universities don't accept it?