Gamifying the Language Curriculum: From Theory to Practice – Dr. Felix Kronenberg

In this presentation, attendees will learn about gamification in language learning contexts. I will discuss and present a theoretical framework that includes learner identity/identities, motivation, immersion, and agency, and discuss ways in which we can move beyond simplistic approaches to gamification based merely on PBL (Points, Badges, Leaderboards). I will illustrate this through a multi-year project, which involves beginning, intermediate and advanced students of German at a liberal arts college. During the project, students have created a virtual city, which plays out in hybrid learning spaces that involve a shifting array of face-to-face teaching and communicative technologies, such as gamification engines, virtual and physical makerspaces, creative production technologies, digital storytelling, games, and social media tools. Some of the innovative work comes from the flexible framework that allows educators to implement such simulations through high-tech, low-tech and no-tech approaches and use it with different textbooks or a textbook-free approach. The gamification approach is particularly exciting because it allows students to choose different paths and guide her/him through the imagined virtual or hybrid world.