Teaching Cantonese using gamification strategies: progress and challenges

Abstract

A thorough understanding of the Cantonese romanisation (spelling) system is crucial to subsequent language learning success. Due to time constraint, however, teachers do not usually have sufficient time to conduct pronunciation drills in class to cater individual needs. It is believed that this issue can be resolved using latest online technologies. CantoSounds [1] is a project that aims at helping students build a better foundation for their future Cantonese studies. The main deliverable of the project is a gamification platform that contains reference materials on Cantonese romanisation and pronunciation, and provides drills and tests to students. The platform was designed in a way that students can log in to the system and decide what they want to learn or practice. Certain gamification elements (score and level, which is partially linked to their final grade) have been added to provide an extra incentive. The platform was released to our students from our introductory Cantonese course (CHIN9511) in the second week of the teaching, after they had learnt some basic Cantonese pronunciation and romanisation. In order to evaluate the effectiveness and reception of the platform and other online materials provisioned, a survey regarding online technologies and their impact on Cantonese learning was conducted after the reading week. The results revealed that while most learners found the platform useful, most respondents did not think that the platform gives them extra motivation to learn the language. We will discuss in further details how these results and students' participation statistics shed light on future development of language-learning related gamification platforms. In particular, we will explore (1) reasons behind the lack of motivation to certain learners; (2) effectiveness of individual gamification elements (score, level, etc.); and (3) integration of gamification strategies in both online platform and language classrooms.