In the last few years, Digital Learning Games have become an increasingly powerful presence on the Internet.
No doubt, it's been that trend, which has encouraged us to create and develop our platform for foreign language learning: GamesForLanguage.com
LEVEL UP
The landscape of Digital Learning through games is full of innovative energy and diversity. Just for fun, I looked what I could find on the web.
A digital learning site that caught my special attention is www.scholastic.com “Level Up” which provides STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and Language Arts standard-based lessons that use video game design as a teaching tool.
In other words, students gain the “knowledge and tools to design their own video games” and learn in the process. That's cool. How I wish this kind of learning had existed when I went to college!
SERIOUS GAMES
There's also plenty of gamified digital learning going on outside of the strict educational setting. And the spectrum is wide.
At one end stand the “serious games,” which refer to games that are not just pure entertainment. One noteworthy example is G4C (Games For Change), an organization that supports games for social change and “provides a platform for the exchange of ideas and resources.”
Another, different example would be the Danish company “Serious Games Interactive” which has developed and sells educational games for “Corporate, Social, Educational, Health, or Market Education.”
TRIVIA GAMES
At the other end of the spectrum stand “trivia games,” which despite their name, have a lot of educational potential. A site that immediately comes to mind is the trivia games site Sporcle, which was featured in a Boston Globe article last year: “On top of the world: Thanks to Sporcle, young people are learning about geography, and other subjects.”
Another popular trivia site is “Trivia Plaza” which has been online since 2001 and continues the interest in trivia, sparked by the board games of that name.
GAMIFICATION
As I'm browsing around on the web, I learn that gamification is becoming the focus of all kinds of research projects. The word “gamification” is fairly new, but the trend itself goes back a few years. It seems to be one with good educational potential – provided the “products” are done thoughtfully and with pedagogic expertise.
(Updated 8/1/2017) Play is a great vehicle for learning. In fact, we learn our first language while playing games, naming things, repeating, imitating sounds, etc.
Playing can transform any difficult learning task into something fun – if packaged in the right way.
Games, can be that package. With their specific rules and controlled processes, games provide an excellent platform for play and learning.
Childhood Memories of Playing Games
When I was 5 years old, I spent two weeks in the Netherlands with my family. Highlights of this visit were days spent at the magnificent North Sea beach at Zandvoort near Haarlem.
My father often told the story that I had quickly found a group of kids to play with in the sand, and within hours I was fully engaged, playing and speaking Dutch.
(My mom was originally from the Netherlands, so I had heard Dutch at home, but had never needed to use it myself. This was my first chance to talk with Dutch kids.)
Playing at the beach: building a sand city, digging ditches around it, getting the water from the ocean, decorating our streets and buildings, all of this required skills of cooperation, strategy, and negotiation.
Apparently, within hours I had learned the basics for negotiating this kind of “team work” in Dutch, playfully. I wasn't aware of “learning Dutch” at that time, but I do remember feeling good about being able to communicate that way.
I wonder sometimes, if that early experience set me on my path to become a linguist and language teacher.
Adults Playing Games
Sports games, such as tennis, golf, baseball, etc. - which many of us love to play - are complex and complicated activities.
They are fun to do, especially because they challenge a player to focus, to figure out the rules, and to play at his or her highest skill level.
Usually, the more we play these games, the more comfortable we become with the intrinsic skill activities - we get better while playing.
Besides, there's a wonderful social aspect to playing such games. We are part of a team, we learn from each other, and of course, we compete with each other.
“[sports and play activities] we remember from childhood … were also exercises in resourcefulness, planning, strategy, design, decision making, creativity and risk taking.” (See also Kevin Caroll's Ted Talk: Play is necessary.)
In the same article, founder of the National Institute for Play, Dr. Stuart Brown states: “Humans are designed by biology to play throughout their entire life cycle.”
He describes our state of mind during play as “... not cognitive, linear thinking. And it's not sleep and dreams. It's kind of a bridge between.”
In the last couple of years “Games for Learning” have become popular, and such sites have mushroomed. Games for language learning are no exception. See also: Are Games Effective for Language Learning?
Multi-sensory games for language learning - using sound, colors, text, images, movement, etc. put the learner on the “bridge” between “linear thinking” and and the rich world of “imagination and memory.” Good games make language learning fun, and yes, effective!
Learning with Rosetta Stone: Latin American Spanish Level 1 Unit 2, Core Lesson (30 minutes)
What am I learning?
Unless your goal is to decipher old texts, you're probably learning a language so you can speak with others. Like, have a conversation, talk about things, find things out, flirt, buy things in shops, get directions, etc.
I've now done six RS lessons. So, what am I learning? In this lesson I learned the words for immediate family members ("mother, father, son, daughter brother"), as well as "friend" and "wife." Those are useful.
But the endless sequences of having to identify the pictures for sentences such as "a man and a dog, a woman and her dog"; "a girl and a horse, a man and his cat" [to learn the difference between "a" and "her/his" etc.]
This was followed by such sequences as: "this is my son, this is my brother, this is my bicycle, these are my brothers" etc, etc," [to learn the difference between between the different forms of "this" and "these."]
Grammar and Communication
The whole Core Lesson is made up of simple grammar driven material, not unlike the examples above. For those who own the course, you can check out the rest of the grammar drills.
I see an interesting dilemma opening up: On the one hand, grammar is the organizing factor for the words and sentences that I'm learning; on the other hand, all this grammar practice is not tied to any meaningful communication.
For example, near the end of the lesson, I see a picture, and I learn "You are my friend." The next pictures teach: "You are my doctor" and "You are my wife." How often will I be saying that?!
Grammar has its place in language learning, for sure. Some people really want to understand how sentences are put together and what makes a language tick. It's a fun puzzle for them.
But others may suffer from (school related) grammar burn-out. They want to let their brain figure things out intuitively. Either way, if a meaningful context is missing, grammar driven learning doesn't cut it.
I've spent a full 3 hours (and more) learning Spanish. I have mastered a number of sentences describing what other people are doing ("the boys are eating, the women are reading"), but I can't yet have a simple, meaningful conversation with a Spanish-speaking friend. Well, I can tell her "You are my friend." At least that's a start.
Learning with Rosetta Stone: Latin American Spanish: Level 1 - Unit 1 - Lesson 5 Milestone
Learning With a Story
In Level 1, Lesson 5, we have a situation, a story, and a conversation. A series of pictures creates the situation: "You" are walking in the woods with your dog and you come across a young couple sitting at their solitary camping spot.
The pictures continue to show a little story: "You" and your dog walking up to the young couple. You ask them questions and they ask you questions (7 in all). So far so good. However, neither the questions nor the answers are really part of a natural conversation. They are all artificial "textbook" questions and answers.
Here's what's going on: "You" approach the young couple, your dog runs ahead. The man asks: "Do you have a dog?" A picture of the dog prompts you to guess the answer "Yes, I have a dog."
The next picture shows the woman inviting "you" to sit down. On her lap is a book. Above the picture, you see an empty box for the question, and a box with the answer "I'm reading." The question that you are supposed to ask/guess is "What are you doing?"
"You" see a thermos standing on the ground, and you see the answer "That is coffee." The question you're supposed to guess is "What is that?"
The next 3 interactions are set up in a similar fashion: - "Do you have a cup? "Yes, I have a cup." - "What do you have?" "I have bread." - "What do you have?" "We have apples."
In the last scene, we see that the dog has gotten hold of some bread and starts eating it. The young woman asks "What is the dog doing?" The answer you're supposed to say/guess is "The dog is eating." Then everyone says good-bye.
I'm beginning to understand the limitations of teaching adults a language without giving them some explanations and clarifications of the finer points. Asking and saying what is totally obvious is not real communication.
The first time I went over this milestone-lesson, I had trouble guessing the right questions and answers. By the third time around, I got a perfect score. That is because I knew what the answers were. But I don't expect to ever be engaged in this kind of conversation, in any language.
Learning with Rosetta Stone: Latin American Spanish: Level 1 - Unit 1 - Core Lessons 3 & 4
The Pros of a Structured Program
Things got really busy, and I became sidetracked from my language learning schedule. Once I was ready to go back, I had to re-motivate myself. For this, a structured program is definitely a good thing. It was nice to just pick up from where I had left off.
New Vocabulary for these two lessons include (all through pictures): 6 basic colors; snake, rose, chick, panda, geese, sun, moon, flower, sky; teacher, police, doctor, student, cowboys; door, cell phones, tennis balls, bed, keys, chair, plates, cups, chair; shoes, skirt, pants, dress, hat, and a few more.
I confess, I did not do all the individual exercises in the units, there was too much of the same. But I did go through the grammar until I understood it. These are the basic Grammar points covered: - Matching colors with singular and plural (masculine/feminine) nouns. - Identifying numbers (1 to 6) with nouns (5 fish, 3 cell phones, 4 chairs, etc.) - Learning to say: "There are X items" and to ask: "How many X?" "What is this?" "Who is doing X?"
It's nice to start learning some simple expressions. They are taught through "pattern imitation" which works well at this level: You see and hear a phrase, then you identify a similar phrase that has a slightly different content. Once you've understood the question "How many geese are there?", you can identify the question "How many snakes are there?"
Limitations
However, I did notice that there may be limitations to the method: A picture of running horses tells me: "The horses run." (Los caballos corren.) The next picture shows me 1 horse running, and it tells me: "The horse is running." (El caballo está corriendo.)
From the two pictures, I cannot figure out why they use two different verb forms ("run" versus "is running"). Since Spanish is rich in verb forms and verb tenses, I hope that these differences will be explained later.
I'm still not crazy about most of the vocabulary that I'm learning. I'm taking a trip to Spain in a few months- that's why I'm learning Spanish. I want to be able to converse with people there.
So far the vocabulary I'm learning in this program is disjointed and not relevant. I may have to schedule my trip for May 2012 and the Mutua Madrid Open tennis tournament. There, I'll be able to use my new sentence: "There are three yellow tennis balls."
Having a structured learning program is good because it saves time. The downside of a structured program is that you are locked into its limitations.
On I go ... Learning with Rosetta Stone: Latin American Spanish: Level 1 - Unit 1 - Core Lesson
Context helps you to learn, right?
I'm learning plenty of new vocabulary: (all through pictures) includes sandwich, egg, apple, bread, coffee, milk, rice; dog, cat, horse, fish; adults, children; drives/drive, has/have; pen, book, bicycle, and others.
But let's look at how grammar points are taught. - The word and concept "and" is practiced extensively: bread and water, a girl and a woman, the man and the woman eat rice, etc. - Besides joining words with “and,” this Core lesson also teaches basic negation.
If we agree with Andy Hunt whose mantra in "Pragmatic Thinking and Learning" (p.6) is “Always Consider the Context" - because it is important for understanding the world around us - then context is also crucial for language learning.
In the Core Lesson of Unit 2, Rosetta Stone teaches negation in a curiously non-contextual way. We see two pictures and learn: "The woman is driving" and "The man is driving."
The next two pictures show first a boy and then a girl sitting in the back of a car, and we learn: "The boy is not driving" and "The girl is not driving." OK. They're sitting in the car and they're not driving. That's true.
The exercise goes on: A picture follows showing a group of men and women running, and learn: "The adults are not cooking." Another picture shows a group of kids running around, and learn: "The children are not writing." Another picture shows a boy eating, and I learn: "The boy is not sleeping," etc. This goes on for a while. I do get how to express basic negation: You add "no" before the verb.
But I don't think that the method really reflects how we (children or adults) understand and learn to express negation. A child doesn't automatically think: "The boy is not sleeping" - when he or she sees a boy running around. Rather, the child may think something like, "Why can't I run too!"
When I see an object, let's say "a pen," I don't spontaneously say to myself: "That's not an apple." But I might think: "That's not a good pen!" or "That's not my pen."
The Core Lesson for Unit 2 winds up with a series pictures and corresponding questions which require a “yes” or “no” answer. In one of the pictures we see girl eating an apple. We are asked "Is she eating an apple?" The answer is, “Yes, she is eating an apple.”
In the next picture, we see a girl sleeping, and we are asked "Is she eating an apple?" The answer is “No, she is not eating an apple.” I could also say, “No, she is definitely not eating an apple.” But first I must learn the word “definitely” in Spanish ...
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!
In the last few years, Digital Learning Games have become an increasingly powerful presence on the Internet. 
“[sports and play activities] we remember from childhood … were also exercises in resourcefulness, planning, strategy, design, decision making, creativity and risk taking.” (See also Kevin Caroll's Ted Talk: 
