Created by Alice Su, Vikky Jiang, Katherine Zhang
Many people have an interest in learning a new language as their second or third language, and it is usually helpful for them to choose a language app to get started…An immersive and comprehensive app can significantly aid during the learning process.
The idea of “immersive learning” emphasizes the importance of creating engaging, interactive environments where users can actively participate in their learning process—that’s exactly what our app aims to achieve.
Our app functions as a social simulation game, where players start by customizing their own avatar. Once inside the game, players are free to explore the environment and interact with non-playable characters (NPCs). Users can navigate themselves using navigation buttons on the screen to move themselves around. They will first start by filling out a 2 question survey to decide how long and the level of difficulty they wish as the game proceeds. The background story of the game is that the user moves to a new village and starts his/her new life in the village meeting different people. Users will be encountering scenes in the game and have conversations with the residents at the village. Before each scene, users will learn necessary vocabulary they need to interact with NPCs. They can earn coins by completing various tasks including daily tasks and learning vocabulary, which can then be used to purchase clothes, accessories, decorate their homes, and even take care of pets. To account for players with different cultural contexts and backgrounds, their different language choice will determine a different environment/building style while engaging in.
Regarding overall game mechanics, players will encounter daily quests, such as talking to five neighbors or collecting ten branches to craft furniture for their home. NPCs will also have tasks for players to complete, adding more layers of interaction, motivation and challenge to the game. With the aim to further enhance language learning, there is a voice recognition feature integrated, which allows players to record their voice messages to practice their speaking skills in real-time. Users will be given different answer choices when talking to NPCs and they can choose one and speak into the microphone to record their answer. And all NPCs are voiced to support listening practice.
Our goal of design is to create a learning experience that feels as engaging and rewarding as any mainstream game, while also delivering valuable language practice through immersive and interactive methods. The design process has helped us a lot to understand learning design, including how to consider different angles of the target audience’s requirements and preferences, how to incorporate their feedback from user research into game design, and finally how to put various ideas on language learning into practice. Elaborately speaking, for example, after we had gained feedback for a requirement and emphasis on speaking practice and interactive activities, we designed “recording voice messages” activities. Understanding users’ differences in first languages and current language, we offered a translation feature and different task difficulty level. Although we have faced some difficulty in designing a consistent app interface, it is really rewarding for us to see the progress we have made so far.
Citation:
SVGRepo. (n.d.). Cute Hero Vectors Collection. Retrieved from
https://www.svgrepo.com/collection/cute-hero-vectors/
SVGRepo. (n.d.). Collections. Retrieved from
https://www.svgrepo.com/collections/
