A change is currently taking place in the educational field. Teachers must face new challenges that entail an adjustment in certain traditional teaching and learning methods as well as the implementation of new methodologies appropriate to the interests of their learners. At this point, gamification plays a crucial role, as it allows breaking the rules of traditional learning and guiding students towards more active learning shaped according to their own interests. The present work aims to develop an innovation project in which gamification strategies are applied through the digital platform Fantasy Class to teach the contents of natural sciences in Spanish to American 8th grade students. The objective is to show that the use of gamification is an effective technique both to increase student motivation and to teach the required contents within a dual-immersion context, which is based on the integrated learning of contents and foreign language.
TopIntroduction
As the 21st century progresses, the field of learning and teaching second languages has become increasingly oriented towards new technologies. This adjustment in teaching and learning strategies is in line with the type of students that usually teachers receive in their classrooms. Many second language learners are part of a generation that Prensky (2001) describes as digital natives. They are students who have grown up surrounded by new digital technologies, they are the so-called generations Y, Z or millennials, and they have specific characteristics, which differentiate them from their previous generations. Additionally, more and more students are becoming aware of the benefits provided by the Internet and the power of connectivity, as explained by Seimens (2005), where knowledge remains outside the core of specialized information. It can be said that Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) was essential to connect with foreign language students, which distanced the learning process from the L2 of the typical classroom environment.
But neither of these two strategies has worked directly with the psychological aspect of motivation. Brown (1994) considers that motivation is an essential and necessary personality factor to acquire an L2. Of all the strategies that exist, gamification is one that constantly promotes motivation, since it addresses the two existing types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, which are essential for the acquisition of an L2. Gamification is also consistent with the work on motivation carried out in the field of the L2 by Gardner and Lambert (1972), who allude to instrumental and integrative motivation, and to the distinction that Graham (1984) makes about assimilative motivation.
On the other hand, we must also emphasize the problem of the lack of motivation that invades the classroom, which has become a challenge to be addressed by teachers in order to carry out a successful learning process A decisive factor and main cause of this demotivation, according to Ospina (2006), are the traditional approaches to teaching and learning in which the teacher is the central axis of the teaching and learning process and the main transmitter of knowledge, while, on the other hand, students are relegated to the background, becoming mere passive receivers of information. Thus, according to Ospina, the implementation of these traditional approaches in the classroom considerably limits critical thinking, imagination, creativity, and the students’ own interests, which significantly contributes to the decrease in motivation.
The main objective of this work is, therefore, to highlight gamification as an optimal strategy to promote motivation and academic performance. Likewise, it is intended to reflect on the use of gamification, through Fantasy Class, a digital platform created specifically to gamify content, extract information on student behaviour and monitor the evaluation. The present tool allows us to analyse how the fact of sharing gamified content positively affects the motivation of students with respect to learning a foreign language, while pointing out the fact that using gamification in the classroom helps to attract attention of the students, to amaze and motivate them, through the assignment of missions and the use of rewards.
The recipients of the proposal are secondary school learners, who study the subject of Natural Sciences in Spanish, in a middle school in the state of Utah, in the United States. The innovative character lies in the use of Fantasy Class, which tries to be the link between the gamified activities and the daily teaching activity, in order to increase the motivation of the ELE students. Thus, through the use of this resource, the aim is to turn the learners into the protagonists of their own learning, presenting the contents through set stories and achieving objectives, through challenges, overcoming levels and obtaining rewards.