Thesis Proposal

Team ILL

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to identify a lack of educational complements to English as a Second Language curriculums and propose that our team create such a complement in the form of an interactive, multi-player computer game. Through literature research, we found that language acquisition is a complex process that requires the understanding of both teaching and learning styles. We hope to continue such research in order to find the most effective teaching style that will appeal to the most students. We also found through research that games can be effective teachers; we hope to incorporate characteristics such as goals and both artificial and human interaction in order to create a game that is both educational and fun.

Section I

Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of students enrolled in English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes (Kindler, 2002). Due to time limitations, ESOL classes can only cover certain material. In order for students to learn the maximum amount of English possible in the time given; there is a need for educational tools that further expose students to the English language. One such tool is educational software, a technology that is becoming more prevalent in language education with proven success (Wood, 2001). Although the use of educational software is ideal for ESOL classes, it has not yet been widely utilized.

Therefore, the question becomes: “How effective is an interactive multiplayer computer game as an educational tool to complement an ESOL curriculum?” We seek to address this question by creating our own game software to increase English proficiency, testing our product on several groups of ESOL students, and determining the game’s effects by analyzing our collected data.

We will consider the following sub-problems: how to teach effectively, how to engage our students, and how to create a game that adapts to students’ individual needs. Learning any language requires both oral and written communication; listening, reading, speaking, and writing must be represented in our game. Games that are more entertaining will help students retain material longer by encouraging them to play more often. Thus we must focus on our game’s entertainment value (Forman, 2003). We must consider that every student will have different learning styles, beginning English proficiency, native language, and external English exposure. Our software must be flexible enough to adjust to each individual student's learning capabilities and still provide a fun, challenging, educational experience. When we develop our software and administer it to ESOL students, we must address these factors to successfully answer our research question.

Section II

Language acquisition is a fundamentally complex process based upon more than just rote memorization of vocabulary and grammatical principles. According to Stewart and File (2007), there are three stages of language acquisition. The first of these stages is when the learner is only capable of direct word and phrase translation. In the second stage, the learner is capable of a more flexible and varied conversational style. Finally in the third stage, the learning is capable of native or near native speech. Brown (2007) says that while both adults and children are capable of learning a second language, children are more likely to achieve the third stage of language acquisition while most adult learners cease acquiring language before reaching native or near native speech. In order to reach the third stage of language acquisition, Pennington and Richards (1986) find that pronunciation “should be…part of the means for creating both referential and interactional meaning.” This means that pronunciation is not just about how individual words and sentences are said, but rather how the words work together to create meaning. We hope to guide users through these stages in our game so that they achieve a maximum understanding of the language’s fundamental principles.

Addressing student learning styles is necessary to reach the third stage of language acquisition. According to Felder and Henriques (1995), there are five aspects of a student’s learning style. The first aspect is the student’s predisposition toward receiving sensory or intuitive information. The second aspect involves the ease at which students interpret visual or auditory sensory information. According to Forman (2003), learning is enhanced through sensory information garnered through experience. The third aspect of a student’s learning style involves hands-on activities or personal reflection (Felder and Henriques, 2005). According to Yip and Kwan (2006), the use of educational games gives students a sense of autonomy in the learning process, which effectively addresses the hands-on learning style. The fourth aspect presents students’ preferences to learn either in increments or all at once (Felder and Henriques, 2005). Finally, the fifth aspect says students prefer either inductive or deductive learning. In our game, we plan to give users a variety of ways to use their learning abilities. That way, the game will be able to adapt to as many different learning styles as possible.

Students must be motivated in order to effectively learn a second language. According to Stewart and File (2007), small steps in learning keep a student motivated and help build confidence. Following along with this logic, Kelsay, Reeder, and Swerdlik (1985) echo the importance of a positive attitude while learning. Yip and Kwan (2006) note that simpler programs build students’ confidence more rapidly because their goals are more easily understood and accomplished. Therefore, games that require significant mechanical skill or time management on the part of the user distracts them, lowering attention levels and ultimately reducing retention of material. Our game will contain series of small, easily followed goals that keep students attentive while they learn.

In addition to learning styles and student attention/motivation, interpersonal relationships can affect a student’s learning ability. Daniel, Schwier, and Ross (2007) find that group learning produces three primary results: learning material from pre-constructed goals, learning material from unprompted participant-to-participant interactions, and the formation of relationships. These relationships can provide additional motivation to the learner by fostering a more comfortable learning environment. Yip and Kwan (2006) further note that students can learn effectively in a virtual interactive world, which allows communication with both technology and other people. Following this logic, our game will have an online component that allows users to interface with other users in real time. This should result in the reinforcement of previously learned knowledge while at the same time creating new ideas.

This virtual world presents technical complications in developing the mechanism for this interaction. It requires both a system for working in the desired language correctly and an artificial intelligence that is able to provide support for the player. Our game will need to implement these requirements. Translation software is used by computer assisted language learning programs in order to provide feedback to the success of the student. Aspects of this software include pronunciation and content analysis; each offers challenges in implementation. According to (Pennington, 1999), Computer Aided Pronunciation (CAP) is a faster analysis of the input speech and does not have the problems of mishearing, judgment calls or losing patience. There is, however, an inherent problem of aspects of language not being able to be analyzed by the speech’s sound wave(Pennington, 1999). CAP has therefore found more successes in ESOL where there is more of a focus on context than correctness of pronunciation (Pennington, 1999). There are, however, aspects of current language analysis software that can be addressed. An example includes differentiating an acceptable speech pattern from actual error because of too strict a baseline of comparison(Pennington, 1999) also suggests exploring databases of pronunciation in order to improve the set of acceptable speech patterns. Rochet’s software for teaching French vowels to native speakers of English seems to do so successfully (Pennington, 1999). Analyzing the student’s speech as a test of their performance using this mechanism will provide our game with the additional data of this aspect of language learning. CAP addresses the analysis of pronunciation as an integral part of language.

In addition to pronunciation, content analysis is required to determine if the grammar and word usage is correct.(Wang & Seneff, 2007) describes a Java web game that asks for translation of stated English statements into Mandarin Chinese. They envision this as the first stage of a dialogue system resembling an interactive immersive environment which our game hopes to achieve for ESOL students (Wang & Seneff, 2007). The analysis takes place by taking the English prompt and constructing a reference Chinese translation using a grammar library for both English and Chinese (Wang & Seneff, 2007). This gives two inputs in translation to compare using a grammar reference library and key-value assignments to give comparable forms to both (Wang & Seneff, 2007). This technique is part of Natural Language Processing (NLP), the translation of normal human language to a standardized form for the computer and vice versa offering great hope for human-computer interaction (Shaalan). Using this technique, our game will gather data on the student’s performance in a quantifiable manner while they are playing. This technique, however, still gives many false negatives and positives due to imprecision in the reference libraries, and must be handled by skipping the question in cases of repeated false negatives (Wang & Seneff, 2007). The software then increases or decreases difficulty by varying amounts depending on the average number of attempts required at each level(Wang & Seneff, 2007).

To support the player an artificial intelligence mechanism provides personalized, dynamic help for the potential problems the student may have. The use of context-sensitive help in both games and other electronic media is one very important form of this feature. In Context-sensitive Help in CALL, TrudeHeift conducted an experiment using E-tutor, an online CALL program(2006). The program contained a variety of exercises in German, and help was provided based on the user’s errors. Due to the large variety of errors that may be encountered, specific help responses are not written in manually; instead help responses are generated dynamically based upon the specific error and a pre-built template. The ESOL students will also have a large range of errors that will mean that dynamic help responses using a template will also be useful in our game when implementing the in-game support system. As expected, the frequency with which users accessed help is also largely dependent on the proficiency of the users in the German language. The study suggests that a dynamic response should involve more than whether a particular answer is right or wrong, but also provide help tailored to the users.

In Serious Games for Language Learning: How Much Game, How Much AI?, Johnson, Vilhjalmsson, and Marsella ((Johnson, Hannes Vilhjalmsson, & Stacy Marsella, 2005)explores how artificial intelligence can be used with a Tactical Language Training System (TLTS). This study’s purpose is to analyze the use of a simulated Arab environment featuring AI characters. The game play involves the manipulation of a 3D character with a guide and a hypertext glossary for each lesson along with a constant flow of action to engage the player. AI is used with the TLTS in the form of feedback, specifically in the form of a “trust bar” informing users of their progress in the game. This allows the artificial intelligence to support the user through the game.

In addition to developing technology to create an interactive environment, data should be collected from the game. In Unpacking the potential of educational gaming: A new Tool for gaming Research, Wideman, Owston, Brown, Kushniruk, Ho, and Pitts also explores how gaming can be designed to engage users. The study involved a program called the Virtual Usability Laboratory (VULab), which can be configured to record certain information from any game in real time via an open internet connection. Applying this to a game called TRIVIA, the researchers gathered data about potential errors as the users experienced them and a realistic depiction of user response to the game (Wideman et al., 2007).

The field of Computer Assisted Language Learning involves linguistic, motivational and technical aspects. These must all be implemented for our interactive educational game in order for the game to be successful.

Section III – Methodology

In order to create an interactive multiplayer computer game for that purpose, there are three sub-problems the team must first address. The first subproblem concerns the issue that students respond best to different teaching styles. Thus, we must find an effective teaching method that will help the greatest number of students learn. The teaching style we select will depend on comprehension of the various topics desired by the school system(s) in which we are testing. Our second sub-problem focuses on the variety of student learning styles. For example, some students learn better when presented with visuals and images while others might learn more from audio or hands-on experience. Successfully addressing this problem can greatly improve the efficacy of the game; a program that molds itself to the student’s learning style could emulate the effectiveness of a private tutor. The third sub-problem is of long-term importance; we will take into account how we can capture and use our students’ attention so that they will retain the material presented. We want students to want to learn the material; games can help create this enthusiasm for learning. People are more willing to learn while playing a game because they are more relaxed and motivated to be successful (Prensky, 2001).

We plan to design a game that is educational, enjoyable, universally accessible, versatile, and designed to complement a middle school ESOL curriculum. The game’s aim is to immerse the player in an English-speaking environment, while enabling both cooperative learning between students as well as individual instruction. We plan to test its effectiveness using a variety of methods: the the school system’s standardized assessment tests, retention rate of language skills as tested by the game, interviews of students before and after the game is implemented, and interviews of school staff and teachers involved in the supervision of student use of the game.

We must assume several things in order to proceed. We are assuming that our students will have the capacity to learn a new language, specifically English. We are assuming that there is a need for additional tools to aid current ESOL curriculums and teaching methods. We are assuming that the use of ESOL learning techniques such as demonstration by concrete gestures and visual aids, implementation of consistent and repeated routines and utilization of repeated phrases and consistent language will benefit students who are attempting to learn English (Mathes et al. 2007). Furthermore, we are assuming that there is a need for further educational research to ensure that students are achieving sufficient levels of literacy (Garcia et al. 2007). Finally, regarding our prospective computer game itself, we are assuming that games based on multi-player interaction, whose dynamic qualities, such as environment simulation, can elicit genuine emotions and are an effective and popular medium of influence for players (Squire, 2003).

The software’s effectiveness will be judged based upon the quantitative and the qualitative data we collect as we conduct our research. Our quantitative data will be test scores provided by the game and surveys distributed to both students and teachers.

We will be implementing our own tests which will be integrated into the game. These tests will take the form of puzzles and other activities. The game will also send back data about what material is the easiest and what material is the hardest to learn.

Student and teacher surveys will be conducted both before and after the game’s implementation. These surveys will include questions about students’ perceived levels of English comprehension, amount of daily exposure to English, and use of English at school and at home.

Qualitative data will be collected through interviews which will be conducted with administrative staff and ESOL instructors from individual schools. These interviews may also be conducted before and after game testing in order to gauge the perceived success of our research. Students will be interviewed prior to testing on the computer games they routinely play and the reasons behind why they play these particular games. We have chosen to use interviews instead of focus groups because individual interviews yield more information and information gathered is unaffected by group opinions (Leedy et al, 2005).

The game will collect and report data on student performance to the team via the Internet. Student confidentiality will be kept by the use of randomly generated ID numbers. The game will track user statistics over the entire testing period, providing a great variety of data that can be used to gauge the efficacy of the game and the progress of individual students. Unobtrusive testing will reduce the impact of test anxiety, and will give us detailed views of students' progress, rather than limiting us to a snapshot view of the students’ starting and stopping points. However, this form of data collection constrains us to data regarding the use of English solely within the scope of the game rather than actual everyday usage. The game’s test may be supplemented by the county’s normal testing methods, giving us an external reference to calibrate our internal data and another metric of overall success.