Hi, my name is Ji Yong Cho.
I am going to present my work with Dr. Erik Andersen and Dr. Rene Kizilcec
about the effects of language immersion and interactivity in a language learning game.
Immersive language learning or learning a second language in a place
where only the second language is available is considered one of the most
effective and natural ways to learn a second language.
It could be effective because in language immersion, learners can pick up
not only the words and expressions,
but also information about when native speakers use them.
To give you an example of language immersion,
imagine you're traveling to a country that speaks a language other than your first language
and you're trying to communicate with local people there like ordering at a restaurant.
Nowadays, technology can provide language immersion, virtually.
Moreover, in online learning settings, people can interact with the learning environment more freely.
For example, learners can repeat a dialogue over and over if they want.
And the learning content can be pre-designed and delivered according to the state of learner's knowledge.
Particularly, games can scaffold learning with game mechanics such as quests, rewards and
ample media input like sound effects.
And we had this idea,
maybe people can learn a second language by simply playing a game that provides
language immersion without any explicit lectures or instructions
To test this idea,
we developed "delivery ghost"
a Web-based game that teaches
Mandarin Chinese to complete beginners without any lectures,
and we conducted a study with people who speak English as their first language.
We tested two factors that can come into play in immersive language learning.
The first one is the level of language immersion.
We compared the translation available condition
with the completely immersive condition.
These are the game screenshots.
As you can see from the first image,
English translation was provided in the translation condition,
however, and in the complete immersion condition, as you can see from the second image,
all of the content was communicated only with visual aids and Chinese.
We found that the complete immersion condition
not only resulted in comparable learning gains,
but also provide similar learning experiences,
including flow, enjoyment, perceived learning and cognitive load
compared to the translation condition.
The second factor was the level of interactivity.
We compared a game and an the animation that taught the same content.
We designed the study such that
the game was relatively more interactive and the animation was relatively less interactive,
We found both conditions produced comparable outcomes
in learning games and learning experiences
except that participants in the game were more likely to have flow experience.
You speculate that no difference in learning gains
is because of the well-designed learning content
that we used for the game and the animation.
What does all this mean?
Our findings imply that we can design a game to teach people a second language
without any lectures or translation in their first language.
And such games can provide learning opportunities for any language speakers.
We call for future research on design guidelines for scaffolding techniques in online interactive learning
to further improve both learning outcomes and learning experiences.
Thank you.