English Idiom Educational Game Design & Implementation Using Acceleration Sensors

Transcription

1 , pp English Idiom Educational Game Design & Implementation Using Acceleration Sensors Mu-Geon Kim 1, Hyung-Won Jung 2 1,2 Gradute School of Information Contents, Serious Game Lab, Kwang-Woon University, 447-1, Wolgye-dong, Nowon-GU, Seoul, South Korea {Mu-Geon Kim, gmg8787}@naver.com {Hyung-Won Jung, hwjung}@kw.ac.kr Abstract. The objective of this thesis is to design and implement educational games for idiomatic expressions in English, to be used in actual classroom situations, for learners of English idioms to go beyond simple mechanical repetition learning for memorization, but to utilize games in the repetitive learning of idioms in English, for improving learning efficiency. Keywords: Serious Game, Educational Game, English Idioms, Game Design. 1 Introduction English is the language used the world over. About 375 million people are native English speakers. Add the number of people using English as one of the official languages, or as a first foreign language, the people using English are the second most numerous after those using the Chinese language. Therefore, the ability to communicate in English is one of the core competencies to be developed in school for the students of tomorrow. In other words, it is vital to be able to understand and express oneself in English in order to take on leading roles in the globalized era of knowledge and information. Idioms play an important role in conversational and grammatical English. Even in middle-school level of English sentences, there can be found numerous expressions which do not lend to interpretation simply from inferences of the words themselves. This research sought to make English idiom learning fun and steadfast, by using acceleration sensors in smart phones, to design and implement educational games for repetitive learning of idiomatic expressions in English. ISSN: ASTL Copyright 2013 SERSC

2 2 Related Research 2.1 Effectiveness of Repetitive Learning Ebbinghaus used a set number of nonsense syllables in sequence in an experiment to derive at the formulation of the Forgetting Curve, by subtracting the Time Expended on Relearning from the Time Expended on First Learning, which was then divided by the Time Expended on First Learning (X100) for the Savings Effect. Ebbinghaus asserted that memory loss begins to occur ten minutes after learning, to result in 50% retention after one hour, 30% after one day, and 20% after a month. 2.2 Educational Games Definition of Educational Games. Educational games are software developed to achieve educational objectives of intellectual, psychological, or physical development of the learner (player), and serves as an educational medium to motivate the learner to maintain continual interest in learning, in consideration for each stage of development. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism defines it as games which are designed, and intended for the user to experience various learning while in the process of playing the game. In light of preceding research, this study shall define educational games in the same manner. Acceleration Sensors on Smart Phones. Most smartphones contain 3-dimensional acceleration sensors for utilization in various applications. Some of the main uses are for sensing the tilt of the unit, for compensating trembling during photography, for removing effects from the tilting when calculating directional sensing values, and using changes in detected values to the sensor from walking on a pedometer function. Fig. 1. Smart Phone Local Coordinate System Copyright 2013 SERSC 83

3 3. English Idiom Educational Game Requirement Analysis & Design 3.1 English Idiom Educational Game Requirement Analysis As already introduced, English is a language used globally, wherein, vocabularies and idioms play a key role. In every type of learning we engage in we start at the basics and likewise for English, together with vocabulary, idioms form the basics which require learning. For many beginning learners of English, idioms are often attempted to be memorized through mechanical repetition, and many simply give up from the ensuing boredom. It was this problem which was addressed through a game for the learner to have fun while engaging in repetitive learning of idioms. 3.2 English Idiom Educational Game Design This game is a type of a puzzle game, for escaping a maze by tilting a smartphone up & down, left & right, after forming the correct vocabulary from word segments which are spaced apart, using touch. Within a single stage for each idiom, there are two games. The first game consists of parts of words which are placed apart, to be correctly combined into an idiom by using tactile input, and the second game is to tilt the smartphone to move an icon to escape through a maze, while passing through each word box placed along the way, in the correct sequence of the idiomatic expression, to finally place the icon in the goal box to finish the stage. Idioms from stages already cleared can be revisited for learning from the title page learning menu, and a scoring menu can be used to check the score achieved. 4. English Idiom Educational Game Implementation 4.1 Game Implementation Screen Game Main Screen. Figure 2. shows the main screen for the game. At the top is the game title, with START, REVIEW, SCORE, EXIT buttons in the middle. The START button starts the game, the REVIEW button goes to learning screen, the SCORE button goes to the score screen, and the EXIT button finishes the game 84 Copyright 2013 SERSC

4 Fig. 2. Game Main Screen Game Stage 1-1 Screen. Fig3. shows the first screen which appears when the START button is pressed from the main screen to start the game. On this screen, for Stage 1-1, touching the word parcels on the right to combine correctly with those on the left results in a score of 1000 points being gained, so that when both words are correctly combined, the message Next! appears at the center of the screen, as shown in Fig 4, then changes after a set time to the Stage 1-2 screen. Fig. 3. Stage 1-1 Start Screen Fig. 4. Stage 1-1 Clear Screen Copyright 2013 SERSC 85

5 Game Stage 1-2 Screen. Fig5. shows the Stage 1-2 starting screen after clearing Stage 1-1. With this screen, the user tilts the smart phone up & down, left & right, in four directions to move the character (a ball). The final goal is the exit (red box) located on the upper left corner of the screen. Once the character collides with the word box for AFTER, located somewhere inside the maze, the word box disappears and a score of 1000 points is gained. If the character is not collided with the word boxes in the correct sequence as the idiomatic expression, the word box does not disappear, and the score remains the same. As shown in Fig6, if the character is collided with the word boxes in the correct sequence, the word boxes disappear, and the exit color changes from red to green, whereupon, if the character is then collided with the exit, Stage 1-2 is cleared, as shown in Fig7, and the center of the screen displays the idiom for the stage with its meaning, and the buttons for NEXT & EXIT. Fig. 5. Stage 1-2 Start Screen Fig. 6. Stage 1-2 Intermediate Screen 86 Copyright 2013 SERSC

6 Fig. 7. Stage 1-2 Cleared Screen 5 Conclusion This research has sought to design and implement a game using smartphone acceleration sensor to make repetitive learning of English idioms interesting and steadfast. Most of the existing smartphone games related to English are weighted towards vocabulary. There are almost no English games in existence intended solely for learning English idiomatic expressions. But using this game, the learner can learn not just English vocabularies but English idioms. In the future, with proactive input from English teachers and experts for systematic experiments to ascertain its learning effectiveness while having fun, with some fine-tuning for improvement, more students can be expected to engage in this learning game, to include usage in actual classrooms of elementary, middle, and high schools for learning. References 1. Ministry of Education, Science & Technology. Appendix 14: English Major Educational Process :Ministry of Education, Science & Technology. No (2011) 2. Jung Pyo Kim.: Design and implementation of web-based teaching-learning materials for the instruction of English idioms: centered on the first grade English for commercial high school. Ulsan University. (2004) 3. Su Yeon Kwon.: Comparative study of the effect of word repetition and retrieval on Middle School EFL Students' Vocabulary learning: Pusan University.( 2013) 4. Oh Hyeon Kwon.: A Study of efficiency through repetition study from each type: KookMin University. (2006) 5. Yong Chul Shin.: A research on the commitment factors of educational games: Kwang Woon Universit.( 2012) 6. Sang Chul Kim., Choong Yong Cha.: A Method for Tennis Swing Recognition Using Accelerator Sensors on a Smartphone: Journal of Korea Game Society. (2013) Copyright 2013 SERSC 87