Gamifying linguistics courses in non-technological learning environments : a case study

Abstract EN

One common course subject to foreign language undergraduate students' complaints in Higher Education is probably linguistics.

Educational technology seeks to tackle the issue of students' demotivation in such courses, and suggest gamification as a 21st century pedagogical problem-solving strategy.

Special emphasis has been placed on Internet-based gamification responding effectively to different learner's needs and styles.

Yet, gamifying education in non-technological settings, where access to digital tools is limited, is still in its infancy.

The objective of this qualitative research is to investigate the extent to which gamification in linguistics courses could be used in such non-technological educational environments.

Another objective is to propose a framework, for the present context, to implement gamification on the basis of Lom's Active Learning Strategies.

An experiment on student-centered gamification was conducted, in addition to an unstructured interview.

23 EFL learners of pre-service teacher education, at Oran Higher School of Education, Algeria, represented the study population.

The experimental findings included different gamified designs, namely graphs, images, drawings, puzzles, and videos.

The interviewees showed an overall satisfaction with the experimental results, but still hoped for more digital gamification integration in their learning process.