As we were adding more scenes to our 4 language courses – German, French, Spanish, and Italian, we are also interested in learning more about the playing habits of our visitors.
Everyone comes to learning a language with a somewhat different attitude and often discovers new and different ways to practice.
We don't track players that register, but we are able to see which lessons they played and how long they were on the site. From that information, we are able to distinguish a number of different types of players:
The Curious Player
We can reasonably assume that anyone clicking the “demo” button is curious about our invitation to “Learn Languages the fun way!”
Maybe he or she has tried other self-teaching language programs and found them either no fun, or is just intrigued by the idea of playing some free games.
The “0” Games Player
Now and then we see visitors who have clicked the “demo” button, but then decided on the next screen not to click on one of the four languages. They may simply not be interested in these particular languages. We promise: More languages will be coming!
We also know that certain browsers and/or screen/zoom settings, especially on netbooks, may be causing problems for some players. We are working on solving those issues and welcome your comments and suggestions.
The Nibbler
May have listened to the dialog and may have played one or two games, but then decided this was not for him/her. Either the program itself did not interest these players, or they had selected the wrong language.
Some Nibblers try out another language later.
The Finisher
Plays through all or most of the games, though he/she may skip a game here and there. Some of the Finishers come back at a later time. They sometimes redo the course after practicing the language in another way.
The Focused Player
Completes all or most of the games of the first scene. Then, having met the score requirement, he/she immediately moves on to scene #2 or even scene #3. These players seem to be interested in one language only. They may also “nibble” sometimes by trying out another language, but then return to the language of their choice.
The Polyglot Player
Plays at least one scene of two or more languages right away. From his/her scores we can speculate that this player may already know one or more of the languages.
Polyglot players sometimes are also Nibblers who try out different languages. Their scores are often high enough to let them move on to further scenes.
The Returning Player
We are very pleased and encouraged by the many returning players who probably fall mostly into the focused or polyglot player categories. These players may have logged on and registered several months ago and are now checking on other scenes or languages.
Is Gamesforlanguage a Serious Program?
It's clear to us that with a tag line such as “Learn Languages the fun way” some visitors to the site may assume that gamesforlanguage.com is not a serious and professionally developed self-teaching language program.
They could not be more wrong. Our courses are based on our own extensive experience in foreign language learning, as well as a 20-year experience in writing and editing self-teaching language programs.
Key Features for Mid-Beginners
Each of our four available courses integrates several key features into one unique comprehensive language learning program for mid beginners. • A travel story sequel of a young American visiting the country of his father's family. Fun games that practice reading, listening, speaking, and writing. • Vocabulary, which is introduced, practiced, and then repeated in later scenes. • The first scene starts with easy sentences, but the sentences get increasingly difficult. • 15 to 20 new words and structures introduced in every scene, and familiar words and structures repeated from previous scenes. • Travel-related and culturally relevant dialogs, expressions, and vocabulary that are immediately useful on a foreign trip. • There are no grammar drills in the courses, only grammar and structures that the learner can discover gradually. Brief comments and tips that clarify aspects of language and culture.
How to Play and Learn
One of the screens we intend to add soon will be titled “How to play and learn.” For those players who indeed are interested and committed to learning a first or another foreign language, we would like to suggest the following: • Play only one(1) new scene per day. • Play some games every day to get into the learning habit. You are free to re-play any scenes or games. • Repeat the native speaker's words and phrases whenever you can in any game. • Repeat any games until you get close to 100%. • "Shadow" the sentences, by saying them along with the native speaker or repeating them a split-second after. You can do that as often as you want. Keep practicing until you feel that you're getting close to the native speaker's pronunciation. • Before you start a new scene, listen again to the dialog of the previous scene. Re-play any of the games for which you score less than 100%.
Learning with Rosetta Stone: Latin American Spanish, Level 1 - Unit 1 - Lesson 1, continued ...
I'm in the habit of doing about 15 minutes of Spanish language learning a day, so it's taken me a while to finish Lesson 1 of the first Unit. After doing the Core Lesson, of Lesson 1, which is 30 minutes of learning, I faced another group of exercises, all still part of Lesson 1.
This added up to 69 minutes. With the 30 minutes of the Core Lesson, I now have had 99 minutes of learning Spanish.
There were no surprises. All the exercises worked with the 17 content words (and familiar mini-sentences) that I had learned in the Core Lesson. All exercises worked with the familiar photo flash card format. In some exercises the simple words were cut into syllables and drilled (endings, masculine/feminine, singular/plural).
Most strikingly, the exercises were not distinct from each other. All exercises (except for the 5 items in the writing practice) seemed to overlap. In all of them, I saw familiar pictures, clicked on them, listened to familiar sentences, saw same sentences written, and in most cases was asked to speak them (either to approving or disapproving sounds).
Somewhere during the "Listening and Reading" exercise, I heard myself say: If I hear "the boy is eating" or "the women are running" one more time, I'll scream.
Ninety-nine minutes is a substantial time investment. The payback is on the light side: 17 content words, and the basic masculine/feminine, plus 3rd person singular/plural distinction.
One other thought crossed my mind. Everything in this lesson is presented in the third person. I see individual people or groups doing a bunch of actions that are unrelated (eating, drinking, running, cooking, reading, etc). I really would like learn language that will get me engaged in conversations with others.
Learning with Rosetta Stone, North American Spanish.
Rosetta Stone is a hot brand, everyone knows about the name. But it seems that a lot of people who know about it, haven't tried it yet.
I worked for 20 years at Pimsleur Language Programs as an author and editor, so I know a little bit about self-teaching language programs. Before that, I was a language teacher. I'm also an avid language learner, with a pretty good fluency in 5 languages. And I am not stopping there.
In order to find out how our GamesforLanguage.com content and game driven approach compares to Rosetta Stone's popular courses, I bought the Rosetta Stone Spanish Course (South American), Level 1, and will try to use it to learn Spanish. I'll also keep a blog charting my progress with Rosetta Stone.
Learning Vocab with Images
Installed the program and proceeded with: Level 1 - Unit 1 - Core Lesson 1. It took me 29 minutes. [Update: You can now learn with Rosetta Stone using an app. That is very convenient.]
I learned and practiced 15 content words and in most cases the basic forms of each content word. Here's a list: hello, good-bye; a (masculine/feminine); the (m/f singular, m/f plural); child (m/f); children (m/f); woman/women; man/men; he/she, they (m/f); he/she eats, they eat (m/f); he/she drinks, they drink (m/f); he/she runs, they run (m/f); he/she reads, they read (m/f); he/she cooks, they cook (m/f); he/she swims, they swim (m/f); he/she writes, they write (m/f)
All these words and forms were presented in 34 mini-lessons with beautiful pictures, clearly showing who was doing what.
A sentence was said - for example "the boy swims," and I had to click on the correct picture. If I picked the right one (usually out of 4 choices), the written sentence appeared on top of the picture. If I picked a wrong choice, an appropriate sound would warn me, and I would try again.
No doubt, I learned all of these words well. But about 10 minutes into the lesson, I started making some foolish mistakes. There was something mind-numbing in the perfect symmetry of the material I was learning.
I also found I was mesmerized by the many, many different beautiful pictures that kept flashing on. Yes, it was an exercise for the mind. But like doing 34 sit-ups, I didn't find the exercise very engaging.
I'm also not sure how I'll slip the following sentences into my next Spanish cocktail conversation: "The boy swims." "The girl eats." "The women read." "The men cook." Well, maybe the last two are not useless. I'm definitely all for women reading, while the men cook ...
Games have a long tradition of being both a fun way to spend time and to challenge the mind. Games can be playful and they can be serious, but always they engage us as we enjoy puzzling things out.
One case in point is the widely popular "Lumosity" site which offers a wide variety of games for brain training. Research and testimonials vouch for the effectiveness of training your brain with games.
More Language Games
The sheer number of games for learning on the Internet has exploded in recent years. More specifically, many language programs have added games to their site as a way to enhance foreign language learning.
For example, Transparent Language has added games such as "word seek" "hangman" "fill in the blanks" or "unscramble." Or, check out rong-chang.com, which lists dozens and dozens of ESL learning games.
Games are Tools
Gamesforlanguage.com is offering something still different: Games are not individual learning clips and they are not an "addition" or an "enhancement" of a language program. With gamesforlanguage.com the games ARE the language program.
The game-based beginner courses provide fun tools for learning French, Spanish, Italian, or German: - A controlled vocabulary acquisition program of 650+ frequently-used content words - Extensive audio practice - Listening comprehension practice - Gradual reading practice that enables you to read a 1800+ word text at the end of a beginner course (36 scenes/lessons) - Beginning writing practice - Essential grammar tips - Speaking practice, by repeating, anticipating, and shadowing words, phrases and sentences. - All of this is wrapped up in a fun story-sequel of a young man traveling to the country of his family's origin and is presented in the form of fun and easy games.
Feedback from Learner
Here are some comments we've received to date: - "The variety of activities is good." - "What's nice is that it doesn't teach too much at once." - "It flows easily, doesn't feel like I'm memorizing." - "I like the easy set-up." - "I like the pronunciation training." - "I like the way of teaching." - "The interaction is great." - "It's helping me to learn and memorize español words in correlation to English! Thank you!"
GamesforLanguage, just like other online programs, is a fun resource with which a learner can engage in another language. Our games help to build basic language skills, which in turn will increase a person's confidence to start speaking the new language in real life. That's the goal!
As we were adding more scenes to our 4 language courses – German, French, Spanish, and Italian, we are also interested in learning more about the playing habits of our visitors.