Lex.gaMe: A game-based personal learning environment for improving lexicon acquisition

Summary

Learning vocabulary is an essential part of mastering a second language. But the time allotted to language learning in French universities tends to make it necessary to focus class activity on interaction and collaborative tasks, sometimes leaving out explicit lexical work altogether. In this view, the Lex:gaMe project aims at providing learners and teachers with a set of tools targeting various aspects of lexicon oriented learning. These tools rely on various existing prototypes. They will be integrated in a design based research perspective involving researchers and teachers from Liris, Icar and the Language Center of University Lyon 2, as well as with some external actors. Among the tested tools, several games will be interfaced with a personal lexical database. This experimental setting will allow to finely analyze the impact of the different tools and the integration modalities on the appropriation of the tools, the engagement of the students and finally on the learners’ acquisitions. The results of this study will allow us to make proposal on the improvement of the prototypes, but also their use in a language learning perspective.

Collaborators

Mathieu Loiseau (LIRIS lab, INSA Lyon), Émilie Magnat (CNRS, ICAR lab)

PhD student

Enzo Simonnet: Tools for reflexivity and motivation in foreign language lexicon learning