August Update: Learning vs. Practicing, Feedback Quality and More

Dioma's new "Learn More" Feature

When we created Dioma, we were committed to grounding all of our exercises in a robust teacher-written curriculum. Because we focus on practice for intermediate and advanced learners, the first iteration of Dioma did not bring these explanations forward for our learners.

That has changed. Speaking and writing exercises now carry a yellow “Learn More” button at the top of the card, beside the name of your topic. Tap it and the teaching for that topic opens over the exercise, under the heading “Learn the topic.”

Inside, four sections:

Explanation. The written explanation for the topic, as the curriculum author wrote it, in English or in your target language.

See it in action. Example sentences with translations, the structure in question highlighted, and a speaker button on each one so you can hear it before you try to say it.

Watch out for. The specific errors learners make on this topic, wrong version beside right version, so you can catch your own before you repeat it.

Try it. A short fill-the-blank check with an instant response, there purely so you can test whether the explanation landed.

One design decision we want to be clear about: you open this screen, it doesn't open automatically. Dioma is a practice engine, not a course, and this exists for one reason: so that practice is productive . We wrote a longer piece on this tension here: Learning vs. practicing.

Arielle walks through Dioma's exercise structure, including a walkthrough of the new page, here:

The corrections got quieter

Earlier this month we wrote about rebuilding the feedback engine. That work has not stopped.

We just rolled out a change to ensure small nitpicks no longer crowd your corrections and no longer feed our algorithym. Several of you told us that being flagged on trivial points buried the corrections that actually mattered. When a response has nothing worth correcting, Dioma now says so plainly, instead of hunting for something to fix so the page looks full.

The practice screens got calmer

The speaking and writing screens now use one task card instead of three bordered boxes, and the timer came off both the exercise screen and the feedback screen. This should make the process of doing an exercise a cleaner flow on desktop and mobile.