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Delivery Ghost: Effects of Language Immersion and Interactivity in a Language Learning Game

Published: 08 May 2021 Publication History

Abstract

One of the most effective ways to learn a second language is to immerse oneself in it in the country where it is spoken. While this is not feasible for most language learners, language learning games may be able to replicate an immersive language learning experience. We developed Delivery Ghost, a web-based game to teach Mandarin Chinese to beginner-level learners, including complete beginners. In a 2x2 experiment (N=159), we tested how immersion and interactivity affect learning gains (pre-post test) and experiences (enjoyment, flow, perceived learning, cognitive load). Participants in all conditions showed significant learning gains even though no explicit, lecture-style teaching was provided. We also found evidence of substantial learning gains and positive learning experiences independent of the level of immersion (i.e., availability of hints in English) and interactivity (i.e., animation vs. gameplay). These results suggest that interactivity and immersion are less critical to learning at the beginner-level than a well-structured curriculum.

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Cited By

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  • (2022)A Systematic Review of Games for Learning ChineseInternational Journal of Education (IJE)10.5121/ije.2022.1030310:3(19-28)Online publication date: 30-Sep-2022
  • (2021)Evaluating Tutorial-Based Instructions for Controllers in Virtual Reality GamesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34746615:CHI PLAY(1-28)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2021

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI EA '21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
May 2021
2965 pages
ISBN:9781450380959
DOI:10.1145/3411763
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 08 May 2021

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Author Tags

  1. Foreign language learning
  2. Language immersion
  3. Language learning
  4. Language learning games
  5. Serious game

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View all
  • (2022)A Systematic Review of Games for Learning ChineseInternational Journal of Education (IJE)10.5121/ije.2022.1030310:3(19-28)Online publication date: 30-Sep-2022
  • (2021)Evaluating Tutorial-Based Instructions for Controllers in Virtual Reality GamesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/34746615:CHI PLAY(1-28)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2021

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