EFL For Digital Natives Part VI: The Gamification of ELT

“Games,” defined as activities with goals and rules but which are amusing or designed for pleasure, have been used in EFL and ESL classrooms for decades now, and have spawned a wide range of useful and very creative books, workbooks and articles.

What is still relatively new, however, but making great strides in the wider fields of marketing, training and now education is the concept of “gamification” (ugly word, I know), which, although integrating them on occasion, should not be confused with “games. “

What is gamification exactly? Different things to different people, as with any new development, but at its heart gamification is an approach that takes challenge dynamics, motivational tools and feedback mechanisms from the world of videogames and applies them to new, real-life areas.

On some levels, gamification has been happening for years without our realizing it, and it has indeed already started to change and shape our behavior. Take the fidelity points or “air miles” you earn by flying with certain airlines. Yes, we recognize them as purchase incentive programs, but if we look at them more closely we see that they are built with a myriad of game-like structures and reward loops: you need to accumulate a certain number of points; the way you can accumulate and spend them varies with flight, season, etc (enabling you to “game the system” if you are so inclined); you can combine points with real money in various ways to create a range of outcomes; and you “move up” in levels (blue, silver, gold) according to how many points you accumulate, with each level bringing you new status and privileges.

In reality, teachers have used crude forms of “gamification” for years: the classic bronze, silver and gold star stickers on commendable class work or homework, for example. What modern-day gamification does, however, is to digitize these mechanisms and make them far more personalized, graduated and social than anyone ever thought possible.

To be taken seriously, however, gamification applied to education should embody the pedagogical insight that learners react better to educational methods based on cognitive neuroscience rather than those based on a “body-of-knowledge-to-be-absorbed” approach. This vision recognizes that:

• Meaning is more important than information
• Emotion is the gatekeeper to learning
• Intelligence is a function of experience
• The brain is social
• Learning is enhanced by challenge and inhibited by stress
• The more stimulation, the more likely long-term memory is created

From this starting point, educational gamification then needs to then do two things:

(a) apply the videogame “ethos” to learning so that learning starts to feel like less of a chore and more like an entertaining, enriching and personally relevant pastime, and

(b) create a game-like reward eco-system that utilizes web 2.0 technology to make the motivational mechanisms employed as immediate, clear and social as possible.

What can we learn (and adopt) from Video Games?

In terms of (a), the videogame “ethos” applied to learning, the key points to keep in mind are to understand how people actually achieve success in videogames, and how (and why) people will continue to play a videogame over and over until they achieve their objective.

• Failure is, by design, part of the game; you advance by failing, by understanding why you failed, and by taking corrective action on your next attempt (e.g. try and try again without stigma)
• Repetition breeds competence; it is not a function of intelligence
• Positive reinforcement all the time
• Positive stress (the thrill of challenge) vs. negative stress (the embarrassment of a low or failing grade)
• Level design: progress to the next level of a videogame is always a challenge, but an achievable one by anyone if enough time is spent on it
• Progress in the game = status enhancement within the game environment
• Social tools amplify the challenge and status advantages of progressing within the game (multiplayer gaming; leader boards; in-game chat; challenge-a-friend)

What are the key gamification components?

In terms of (b) above, the gamification ecosystem, this should include:

• Points and achievement levels (instead of grades)
• A progressive difficulty curve (easy to “play,” difficult to master)
• Missions/ tasks / badges, so that most activity results in a reward
• Feeback that errs on the side of reinforcement and avoids creating stress
• Social sharing of rewards and challenge mechanisms among friends

Why does gamification often work better than classic educational feedback mechanisms?

Gamification allows the learner to benefit from a gradual but constantly forward-moving approach to the subject matter. Let’s take grades as an example, contrasting them with a points-based approach. In a conventional educational setting, if you take a test (itself a stressful experience) and score 20/100, you will feel terrible about it. Assuming you want to re-take the test, and you expend a lot of effort studying for it, and are able to actually double your score to 40/100, you will still end up with a “fail” grade, and will inevitably feel demotivated.

However, in a gamified framework, assuming you score those same 20 points (out of a possible 100) in a game, then double it to 40 points next time, you have still accumulated 60 points towards your goal. Even if the goal in question is, say, 1,000 points to get the next level, the “system” has neither (twice) labeled you a failure, nor has it shown you that your efforts have (twice) provided you with no traction at all. There has been progress, albeit slow, and effort has not been wasted. This builds motivation.

Gamification in EFL: English Attack!

Our vision for English Attack!, at the end of 2008, was to build and launch the first online EFL/ESL service integrating solid ELT pedagogical principles (the lexical and communicative approaches, for example) and the triple combination of cognitive neuroscience principles; a videogame “achievement ethos” and the right gamification components. We also wanted to create something for a demographic segment that seemed to us to be under-served: the “digital natives” (those born after 1995) who are fast losing patience with linear, rules-based, textbook-focused teaching methods.

We thus borrowed from our media and videogaming backgrounds to create content units based on film, television and music entertainment; created a range of learning games made for the memory reinforcement of seen content; devised a reward system of instant exercise feedback, points, levels, achievement badges, and coins; and situated the whole in a social network of learners where information sharing, commentary and other uses of English are encouraged and rewarded.

After 12 months of Beta testing involving 25,000 learners from 70 different countries, we officially launched the site at the end of June and have so far been encouraged by the enthusiasm of the learners who use the site; their comments on (and sharing via social network of) the various content units; and their apparent engagement with the points, levels and coins system put in place. It is frankly too early to tell whether we are achieving the kind of personalized, goal-driven behavior aimed at improving one’s English that we are shooting for, but the first signs are positive and we look forward to this Autumn and the next stage of site development when we introduce the tools and systems that will allow teachers and schools to integrate English Attack! into their programs as an out-of-classroom educational platform.