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Mobile apps to support and assess foreign language
learning
Anke BernsManuel Palomo-Duarte
Juan-Manuel Dodero
Alberto Sánchez CejasJuan Miguel Ruiz-Ladrón
Andrea Calderón Márquez
EUROCALL 2015 Padova, 26-29 August 2015
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1. TEACHING BACKGROUND
2. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
3. CHALLENGES
4. DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE
5. CASE STUDY
6. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS
7. FUTURE WORK
CONTENT
1. TEACHING BACKGROUND
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•beginner level (A1.1; CEFR)
•very large language courses•few hours of language practice in class versus many hours of independent learning
•few opportunities to attend personal learner
needs
•need for more personalised feedback
•need for more language input & output
2. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY:
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•to explore the potential of smartphones to enhance language learning out-of-class
•to make independent learning processes more dynamic & easier to monitor
3. CHALLENGES
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•to design an app that rather than delivering learning content allows students to develop their own learning materials
•to develop a learning environment which is built by the learners & teachers in line with their needs
•to help teachers monitoring & assessing students’ learning process
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We designed an APP, called Guess it! Language Trainer, that aims:
– to support students in their independent learning by addressing different language skills
– to get students actively involved in their learning process
– to help teachers monitoring & assessing students’ learning process
4. DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE
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GUESS IT! LANGUAGE TRAINER. Students’ interaction with the app.
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• The APP implements a simple game based on guessing, assessing & creating word definitions/descriptions in the target language.
• Students have to select first the category, level & number of definitions they want to play.
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• Learners must rate every definition they play (peer-assessment).
• Learners can report a definition if they consider it wrong, offensive or difficult to guess.
• Learners can listen to the pronunciation of each definition.
• Learners can copy words to their notebook.
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• Receive constant feedback through different game statistics (last game, rankings on their overall game-performance etc.)
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• Students are invited to create & enter their own definitions• for every 20 words they guess, 1 new definition.• new definitions are then played and rated (or reported) by
mates.
Game-Dynamic
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Teacher assessmentDefinitions played per student & level
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Success ratio per student & level
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Ratings received per author
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Ratings received per author
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Definitions entered per student
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5. CASE STUDY: SETTINGS
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• German as a second foreign language course at the University of Cadiz (Spain): 120 students played the APP (A1.1 CEFR), 6 ECTS
The corpus of the system started with 282 definitions which have been entered by the supervisor ... … and ended up with 826 definitions!!! More than 500 new definitions (+4 per each student)
Each game session provided students with new learning content - Students had to keep playing the APP
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100 students filled in 4 tests (60 questions per test): Pre-test before starting 1 to 4 Post-test 1 after a week playing levels 1 & 2 Post-test 2 after a week playing level 3 Post-test 3 after a week and a half playing levels 1 to 4
• Each post-test consisted of 80% of terms to be guessed and 20% of words to be defined by the students themselves
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• Results in the tests (out of 10 points)– Mean difference from pre- to posttest 1 was
4,8– Mean difference from pre- to posttest 2 was
5,7– Mean difference from pre- to posttest 3 was
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• Students played a total number of 165.178 definitions‒ Considering just 1 minute for each: reading,
answering, assessing, (reporting) and (copying), the results show that students played more than 5 hours per week!
6. RESULTS & CONCLUSIONS
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‐ the results obtained (server logs & pre- and posttest) show that students played & improved very much their language knowledge
‐ the supervisor could easily access valuable information regarding learning analytics & assessment
‐ the webportal helped to early identify those students who had difficulties & needed more personalised feedback
-the results from our interviews with the students underlined the importance of giving them enough guidance on how to make the most of the app for their learning.
-the need to integrate students directly in the development process.
-students enjoyed the app more in the second year due to the extensive training sessions.
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• Implementation of the system to allow users to improve reported definitions.
• Multi-Player-Mode.
• Other plataforms: iOS, Windows Phone
• Integration in LMS: moodle, SNS, etc.
7. FUTURE WORK
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QUESTIONS/ SUGGESTIONS?Thank you for your attention!
If you -as a teacher or designer- have any suggestions on how to improve and
implement the APP please contact us:[email protected]
[email protected]@uca.es
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