Play to learn: self-directed home language literacy acquisition through online games

Abstract

Home language literacy education in Australia has been pursued predominantly through Community Language Schools. At present, some 1,000 of these, attended by over 100,000 school-age children, cater for 69 of the over 300 languages spoken in Australia. Despite good intentions, these schools face a number of challenges. For instance, children may lack motivation and perceive after-hours schooling as an unnecessary burden. Trained teachers and suitable teaching materials are often not available. Moreover, not every language can be offered in each city or region. Hence, home language speakers' needs are often not met. This situation has detrimental effects for children, families and communities, and entails a loss of opportunities for the country. Reporting on an alternative approach, this paper presents a pilot study conducted in Australia with English-German bilinguals. We sought to investigate whether primary school-aged children can self-direct their home language literacy acquisition through playing online educational games, in the privacy of their homes and with little adult input. Results indicate that the games can be effective in promoting emergent literacy development. Thus, such a grassroots approach could become a viable option for multilingual societies, addressing some of the practical challenges faced by, for instance, Community Language Schools.

‘Is there an app for that?’ Exploring games and apps among heritage language families

“…In the questionnaire, 66% of parents reported that their children were interested in computer games, 56% were interested in web-based (browser) games, and 82% of children were interested in mobile games and apps (with 65% of parents reporting such interest in themselves). This represents a significant proportion, echoing findings by Eisenchlas, Schalley, and Moyes (2016). Simultaneously, 78% of parents reported that their child was interested in the heritage language, and 75% of parents believed that apps and games could motivate their child to learn the heritage language.…”

“…Research among families who speak more than one language is situated against a complex background which refers variously to: immigrant families (Szecsi and Szilagyi 2012;Rumbaut and Portes 2001), bilingualism or multilingualism (Baker 2011) plurilingualism (Prasad 2013), home language (Eisenchlas, Schalley, and Moyes 2016) and heritage language (Cho and Krashen 2000;Szecsi and Szilagyi 2012). Throughout this paper, the term heritage language' is used, since the vast majority of families had views of the 'heritage language' that aligned with Blackledge and Creese's (2010) interpretation, namely a minority language not spoken by the majority within the community or country, with both language and culture being passed down the generations.…”

“…Among the few studies exploring this particular field is a pilot study in Australia (Eisenchlas, Schalley, and Moyes 2016), which used three specifically designed games to explore literacy development in the minority language (German) of nine children aged 5-8, finding improvement in literacy development in the minority language, and satisfaction and motivation among children and parents with regards to the games. Szecsi and Szilagyi (2012) explored the perceptions of two immigrant Hungarian families on the use of media technology and heritage language development, with both families responding positively.…”

“…Differentiated regulations across different providers further complicate the expertise parents might need in order to take full advantage of apps and games available. This may help to explain why much of the research to date focuses on custom-made games (Eisenchlas, Schalley, and Moyes 2016), rather than exploring the myriad of games openly available, but only used by few families.…”

Kes Sesi: A mobile game designed to improve kindergarteners' recognition of letter sounds

“…Although, in each period, there was one treatment group differing significantly from the control group, the treatment groups always had better sound recognition performance than the control group, as shown in Figure . Therefore, the results are promising in that Kes Sesi can be useful in self‐supported learning circumstances with little adult input, such as home language literacy education (Eisenchlas et al, ; Rominus & Lyytinen, ). Especially by adhering to the national norms on categorization, it can also be useful in attended learning environments as a self‐paced practice tool as in any case, game playing groups surpass the nongaming group.…”