Creating Language Together

Problem Statement

In elementary school, ESL students are likely to perform poorly on assessments when compared with their English-only peers due to a gap between quantity of vocabulary acquired.

Target Audience Research 

1.Why don’t ESL children learn enough English words?

Before design, I considered it important to have a thorough understanding about the problem.  Based on my research results, there are three reasons why English language learning is difficult for ESL children.1).ESL children do not distinguish between languages and treat all words in both languages as part of the same mental dictionary. 2).Understanding syntactic differences between two language systems is very challenging for children.3).ESL children are less exposed to English at home.

2.How do ESL parents learn English with children at home?

In order to answer this question, we conducted User Research Survey (for ESL Parents)  to acquire information about how ESL parents learn with their children at home.Based on the user research result, we figured out that parents basically learn with children in two ways at home: 1) Reading books 2) Playing games

Goal of the Project

To create an English language learning game that combines reading and playing, in which parents and children will not only follow the story but also create their own stories.

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Learning Goal of the Project

The learning goal is to increase the acquisition and application of English vocabulary words for ESL children.In order to prepare ESL children for elementary school, the App follows the Common Core State Standards for the English Language Arts Standards for Kindergarten students.


Learning Context

At home: Parents and children will work together to construct their own stories and build their language acquisition together.

Learning Theories

The project combines constructivist and playing as learning frameworks. Constructivism sees learning as a process of constructing or making something. Puzzle pieces allow children to construct sentences and stories. Learning is meaningful as parents and children work together to build knowledge and create meaning by connecting the game to their real life experiences. Parents will be tasked with asking children questions about the game to help children gain a deeper understanding of the vocabulary words.

Usability Test

The project will first be tested using different groups of families, who have ESL children around the ages of 4-6 years old. Families from different backgrounds and different native languages will be asked to playtest the prototype. Before the playtest, a “pretest” will be conducted to measure how much English vocabulary the ESL children already know. After the playtest, parents and children will be interviewed to get their feedback on the game. A follow-up test will also be given to children to test how much vocabulary they learned during the playtest. As design is an iterative process, after analyzing the initial feedback and evaluating what needs to be improved and strengthened, the design will be revised to incorporate the necessary changes.

Mock up

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Flowchart of the Game

CLT

Rachel Guo | rg2891@tc.columbia.edu | 175.2683.5198