8 GAMIFICATION TECHNIQUES TO TEACH LANGUAGES Luis Valladares Ríos varluis13@gmail.com Abstract Coding and Gaming educational games while programing, reading, writing, listening and speaking activities where students apply methods, techniques and strategies to work collaboratively in a virtual scenario related to game based and experiential learning methods to facilitate students syllabus learning achievements when interact with the educational game for a linguistic learning goal or game target while having fun, working collaboratively, using the technological skills to develop and playing eight (8) meaningful activities: 1.- Reading short stories. 2.- Coding short stories 3.- Listening activities while gaming. 4.- Coding listening activities. 5.- Video analysis. 6.- Coding video analysis. 7.- Writing activities, 8.- Coding writing activities. Those 8 ( ) activities consolidate the students linguistic skills while coding and gaming through watching documentaries, recording their voice, editing pictures, writing and listening dialogues to facilitate the learning process on a target mission in the proposed educational game by other team designer where students apply their skills and abilities to program, code and enjoy the educational games, with assessed achievements promoting previous knowledge usages. Introduction Gamification techniques to teach languages is a meaningful strategy to engage students to design their own linguistic learning process by coding and programming a game with the Kolb (2005) experiential learning cycle while the learners have the experiences with the video, audio, reading and conversation to analyze the concepts, skills and linguistic learning goals to develop an active experimentation while code and program a game collaboratively therefore the gamification techniques facilitates creative, proposal, entrepreneurs and thinker students development as long as plan, develop, code, program, assess, play and share their educational computer game related to the linguistic learning achievements suggested in the learning outcomes with the writing, listening, reading and speaking activities to consolidate the students linguistic skills while playing the educational computer games in the classroom to choose the best selected by the other teams and assess the team work and the game in the e-portfolio to upload it on the websites to share with other language learners-. Why Gamification techniques? Students learning improvement is a process that a language teacher must develop in the curriculum to design meaningful and motivational activities to engage students to desire to learn therefore the concept of meaningful gamification is that the primary use of game layers is not to provide external rewards, but rather to help participants find a deeper connection to the underyling topic. This is done through game elements that focus on concepts of play, that provide information and choice, and that encourage reflection (Nicholson, 2012). Children and young teenagers likes to play and have fun, those strategies can be used by the language Teacher to develop different environments to speak, write, listen and read meaningful 63
and interesting activities to promote students learning improvement with reflection on language, learning by doing and game based learning to generate educative digital games that promote learning by doing, solving problems, reflect on language. Humans motivator drive to change attitude in real life situations, those games provide complex systems of rules for players to explore through active experimentation and discovery (Bennett, 2013) while playing in an educative game coding by other classmates in the same group or previous levels programmed according to the learning achievements in the syllabus assessed previously by the language teacher. The Gamification techniques used where adopted to handle the Kolb (1984) experiential learning cycle that involve an important feature of Kolb s idea is the idea that the process of learning perpetuates itself, so that the learner changes from actor to observer from specific involvement to general analytic detachment, creating a new form of experience on which to reflect and conceptualize at each cycle (Dixon, 1999) where learners play the game, analyze, assess the game weaknesses and strengths in the e-portfolio, code a new game form the topics and 8 strategies suggested by the teacher to program the target mission to achieve the learning goals to share the games and restart the cycle. The experiential learning cycle includes four learning modes concrete experience, abstract conceptualization, reflective observation, and active experimentation (Kolb, 2005 en Gosper (2013) those four modes are organized to get the concrete experience when the learners work collaboratively, using the technological skills to develop and playing eight (8) meaningful activities while read short stories, listen native speakers interviews on a radio programs and songs, Video analysis to writing essays to support their thesis. Afterwards, the learners conceptualize the grammar, pronunciation, syntax, language skills and learning goals to reflect on the language by doing the activity to code an educational game to provide rules, meaningful environments and active experimentation to learners. People likes to play because of mastery, socialize and have fun about a target mission that the player or learner have to work collaboratively and develop strategies by himself to master his proficiency and work collaboratively to achieve the target mission in the game while playing repeatedly to acquire the ability to get points and win in the educational game to enjoy the language learning process. A virtual learning by doing technique allows students to go on improving their goal team work knowledge, skills and abilities (Martín 2012) to programming games that promote cognitive, practical, social and psychological skills to motivate students language learning process by doing. Those skills facilitate students to acquire the meaningful language used in an educational computer game coding and programming techniques to motivate students. Methodology Collaborative learning techniques to coding and programming games to learn: 64
Concrete experience, abstract conceptualization, reflective observation, and active experimentation when the students had the concrete experience while reading the short stories they will be able to conceptualize and reflect on the language learning goals to code short stories games where they have to write the instruction on the educational game manner. Also with the listening activities while gaming the students will code coding listening activities to get the players classify the sounds by semantics fields to get points in the game. Beside the audio, the video analysis the learners will code video activities from famous literature, movies, documentaries, and T.V. programs to program writing activities in the (8) infinitum educational computer game. The project applied was designed in four stages: 1.-Planning Reading short stories. - Listening activities. - Video analysis. - Writing activities. 2.-Development: - Coding short stories. - Coding listening activities - Coding video analysis. - Coding writing activities. - Creating a game. The learner used different platforms and software to develop the educational computer games on http://scratch.mit.edu/, http://www.kodugamelab.com/ https://minecraft.net/, http://hotpot.uvic.ca/, http://goanimate.com/. Those online sources have to download the files and register like users to develop educational products to share with others on line. - Collaborate designers: The Students will work in teams of 2 or 4 students to plan, design, code, program and assess the computer educational game to share. In those computer educational games had to apply the language learning goals provided by the language teacher to get the learning formative assessment while gaming and coding. - Share the games. The students share the games in the group first to assess and give suggestions to improve the games to finally upload the games on internet. 1.- Story and translation. 2.- Environment. (audio, video, interview) 3.- Perform the story. 4.- Designing thinkers. 5.- Solve problems 6.- Understanding coding 3.-Presentation. Gamification Assessment criteria: -Assess the game while playing. 65
-Assess students learning goals. Share the games 4.- Student evaluation instruments. Before to upload the games on internet the students with the teacher will play and assess the games to evaluate the teams by having fun because of Gamification can also help with formal assessment, especially when dealing with young learners and teenagers. The adoption of experience points, and level system more usually found in a computer adventure game than in a classroom, to make practicing for formal examination more fun.. (Graham, 2013) formal assessment can be applied to file the students language learning abilities and skills proficiency with the computer educational game. Gamification Assessment criteria (adapted from Mishra & Foster, 2007) on Graham (2013) Cognitive Skills Innovative/ critical thinking Systemic Thinking Practical skills Motivation Social skills Phycological levels Receptiveinsufficient Digital/ technological literacy. Multirepresentational undestanding Self-esteem/ confidence Immersion (fantasy/curiosity ) Communicati ons Interpersonal skills Aggressiveness Antisocial behavior operativesufficient Inquiry skills Experstise development Immediate Feedback/scaffol ds Competitive behavior Coordination autonomou s- satisfactory Deductive/ inductive rasonong Metaphori c to modelbased reasoning Casual/co mplex/onsi teractive relations Memorizin g Innovative/creativ e design skills Data handling Multimodal literacy Time management Control, choice, autonomy/ clear goals. Discovery/ exploration Communities/ emergent culture Civic roles/ duties/ informed citizenery Motor skills Violence Valuing Collaboration Obesity Identity fomration strategicfeatured E- Portfolio. 66
Each teams has to show their e- computer games portfolio with their own team Gamification assessment criteria and other team assessment gamification assessment linked to the educational computer game to prove that worked collaboratively. Main goal: Achieve the language learning objectives in the syllabus, the competencies, abilities and skills Level.- Developed by the teacher before the activity. Learning focus: Topics and themes socio formative assessment. Technical requirement: Computers, Internet, etc. Results. Students Coding the computer educational games applying their language learning abilities and skills while working on t 8 ( ) writing, listening, speaking and reading activities while coding and gaming through watching documentaries, recording their voice, editing pictures, writing and listening dialogues to facilitate the learning process on a target mission in the proposed educational game by other team designer where students apply their skills and abilities to program, code and enjoy the educational games, with assessed achievements promoting previous knowledge usages assessed by the gamification assessment criteria. Discussion The importance to assess students learning abilities and skill related to the learning achievements is priority to apply because learners can be motivated but the teacher must be aware of the students language learning improvement to change or continue with the strategies because the infinitum activities will help the language teacher to improve every day the activity to develop a lot of computer educational games to teach different kinds of topics to teach languages. Conclusions. The infinitum (8) gamification techniques used to teach languages In this proposal helped to motivate students to design creative and meaningful games related to the educational learning goals in the curriculum to motivate students to learn and engaged students to find out real problems in their life where they have to solve problems, analyze the situation use their previous and prior knowledge to give solutions and learning by doing. Those entrepreneurs gamers thinkers develop new strategies to improving constantly project by project in the coding and programming games working collaboratively and reevaluate their educational games with a formal gamification assessment criteria. References. Aldrich, Clark (2005) Learning by Doing: A Comprehensive Guide to Simulations, Computer Games, and Pedagogy in e-learning and Other Educational Experiences. Edit. Pfeiffer. San Francisco, ISBN-10: 0787977357, ISBN-13: 978-0787977351 Retrieved on March 1 st, 2014. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=m03ye5bupoyc&printsec=frontcover&dq=learnin 67
g+by+doing&hl=es419&sa=x&ei=dchhu7gln4jn8qh71idacq&ved=0cc4q6aewa A#v=onepage&q=learning%20by%20doing&f=false Bennett, Tom (2013) Teacher Proof: Why research in education doesn't always mean what it claims, and what you can do about it. Edit. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.. London and New York. ISBN-10: 0415631262, ISBN-13: 978-0415631266 Retrieved on February 10 th 2014. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=vgofxr0lft4c&pg=pa153&dq=teaching+gamificati on+techniques&hl=es419&sa=x&ei=omzhu83vceav8ahnzigibg&ved=0cfqq6aew BA#v=onepage&q=teaching%20gamification%20techniques&f=false Buck Jemma, Wightwick Christopher (2013) Teaching and Learning Languages: A Practical Guide to Learning by Doing. available on line at. Edit. Routledge. Taylor and Francis group. USA and Canada. SBN-10: 0415638402. ISBN-13: 978-04156384010 Retrieved on March 2 nd, 2014. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=vxwzkfdh0ec&printsec=frontcover&dq=learning+by+doing+teaching+strategie S&hl=es- 419&sa=X&ei=k8pHU6OuCceG8gG1w4DIBw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=le arning%20by%20doing%20teaching%20strategies&f=false on Dixon, Nancy M. (1999) The Organizational Learning Cycle: How We Can Learn Collectively. Mc Graw-Hill. USA. ISBN-10: 0566080583. ISBN-13: 978-0566080586 Retrieved on April 4 th, 2014.. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=gtn1rjfsom0c&pg=pa65&dq=experiential+learni ng+cycle&hl=es- 419&sa=X&ei=oXVIU4KfE7Po2gXW6YH4DA&ved=0CHAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=e xperiential%20learning%20cycle&f=false Gosper, Maree. Ifenthaler Dirk (2013) Curriculum models for the 21st century: Using Learning Technologies in Higher Education. Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London. Springer +Business Media. ISBN-10: 1461473659, ISBN-13: 978-1461473657. Retrieved on April 5 th, 2014. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=qvaraaaaqbaj&pg=pa117&dq=the+kolb+an d+kolb+2005+(1984)+experiential+learning+cycle&hl=es- 419&sa=X&ei=9nlIU7vBLfKO2gXxhYHoAg&ved=0CDwQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=The %20Kolb%20and%20kolb%202005%20(1984)%20experiential%20learning%20cycle&f=fals e. Moon, Jennifer A. (1999) Reflection in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice. RoudledgeFalmer. New York, USA and Canada. ISBN-10: 074943452X, ISBN- 13: 978-0749434526 Retrieved on April 4 th, 2014 http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=gtn1rjfsom0c&pg=pa65&dq=experiential+learni ng+cycle&hl=es- 419&sa=X&ei=oXVIU4KfE7Po2gXW6YH4DA&ved=0CHAQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=e xperiential%20learning%20cycle&f=false Scott Nicholson (2013)Exploring Gamification Techniques for Classroom Management Syracuse University School of Information Studies, 245 Hinds Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, scott@scottnicholson.com Retrieved March 2 nd, 2014. http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/gamificationtechniquesclassroom.pdf consulted 68
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