Newark School, Sliema, is taking part in an EU-funded project aiming to develop and test new ways of making learning of languages and other subjects more enjoyable.

Together with other partners from Spain, Poland, Greece, Turkey and Italy, the school is involved in the Heroes, Castles, Legends and Learning Gamification project, which is supported by the Erasmusplus programme.

Students and teachers from each of the partners recently met in Gdansk, Poland, to discuss ‘learning gamification’ and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL).

Learning gamification is the application of typical elements of playing games, such as scoring points, competing with others, and playing by rules, to render learning more engaging, and make students more motivated. Learning through gamification strategies are aimed at encouraging pupils to learn while playing and having fun.

Storytelling is an essential part of a good game, and during the project, most of the strategies, tests, trials and problem-solving of video games are being reproduced in life-sized games played in real castles.

In games, an imaginary world is created where there is conflict between heroes and villains, clans and groups. The partners in the project now aim to provide the ‘players/pupils’ with stories to give them context as to what they are doing.

The project partners hope that by making learning fun, and making teaching approaches more attractive and enjoyable, this will help prevent absenteeism and decrease the ratio of early school leaving.

During the project, learning gamification will be blended with digital storytelling to help improve lessons and learning outcomes in CLIL, English as Second Language (ESL) and Deutsch als Fremdsprache (DaF) to help make them more effective. It is hoped that through the project’s games, fun challenging activities and other pro­ducts the students will also subconsciously learn the importance of learning a second language.

Other meetings are due to take place in Italy and Spain.

For more information call Dr Diana Busuttil on 2122 5884 or e-mail d.busuttil@futurefocus.com.mt.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.