Gamification to Enhance Second Language Learning

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Facultat de Filosofia i Lletres Memòria del Treball de Fi de Grau

Gamification to Enhance Second Language Learning

Daniel Pérez Albertí Grau d’Estudis Anglesos

Any acadèmic 2020-21

DNI de l’alumne: 43466280Y

Treball tutelat per Yolanda Joy Calvo Benzíes

Departament de Filologia Espanyola, Moderna i Clàssica

S'autoritza la Universitat a incloure aquest treball en el Repositori Institucional per a la seva consulta en accés obert i difusió en línia, amb finalitats exclusivament acadèmiques i d'investigació

Autor Tutor

Sí No Sí No

Paraules clau del treball:

English, motivation, engagement, gamification, ClassDojo

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Abstract

Learning a second language is currently a vital process that every human being meets in their educational process. The importance of learning new languages has become an essential process in a globalized world. However, learning is not always an engaging process, and students can easily become demotivated during the process. Many educational centres use traditional methodologies to teach English. Teachers explain grammar rules, new vocabulary and then, students do some exercises. This way of teaching generates monotonous and boring learning experiences for these students, and they end with no motivation to keep learning second languages, especially English. Nevertheless, thanks to the development of emerging technologies, new methodologies, tools, and other ways of teaching have emerged with excellent prospects to motivate these students while learning a second language. One of these methodologies that might perfectly function in these situations is gamification. Students love playing games and video games, and this approach tries to incorporate some of its elements to engage and motivate students to enjoy learning a second language.

Key Words

Motivation, engagement, gamification, second language learning, ClassDojo.

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List of Images

1. Picture 1. An example of the main page of ClassDojo………..13 2. Picture 2. An example of positive and negative points in the ClassDojo application………14

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1. Introduction

English is considered the lingua franca of the world since it is used around the globe. As Michaud (2015, 2) states, “in an increasingly globalised world in which people from various geographical and linguistic backgrounds must communicate with one another daily, the need for a global lingua franca is obvious”. The importance to develop a global language made the learning of English vitally essential. Thus, learning English as a second language has become a necessary subject throughout one’s learning process. However, for some students, learning English might be an arduous and tedious process. Kruk and Zawodniak (2018) conducted a study where they deeply analysed boredom and the adverse effects it had on students’ learning process. They concluded that “some students regarded language classes they attended, or their parts, as monotonous or unnecessary and language tasks as too difficult or too easy” (Kruk &

Zawodniak 2018, 7-8). Learning English as a second language is a humdrum task because of its boredom. Gardner (1985) points out that interest is one of the strongest motivations for learning. So, the main conclusion to be drawn from the very beginning is that English educators should intensely exert themselves to find new methodologies, tools that might motivate their students since it seems that learners are not deeply engaged in their lessons.

Nowadays, it seems that learning languages is a tedious task. In Dumančić’s words

“boredom is considered one of the prevalent negative emotions in the academic context;

moreover, its detrimental effect impacts students’ progress which is accompanied with lose of interest and difficulty focusing on a certain classroom activity” (2018, 2). Boredom thus, can cause children to become inattentive and disengaged from the task. This lack of engagement seems to be the factor affecting English lessons and its learning. One of the solutions provided in this paper and widely concluded by many experts is finding motivating environments where students can be deeply engaged and motivated. As Guerrero states “it is common to hear that the success or failure of a language learner to master a second language (L2) depends on their motivation” (2015, 2). Being motivation one factor that can positively affect our students’

master of English, gamification can be one clear solution to leave boredom behind and create a positive, engaging, and motivating scenario where learners might be able to change their past conception of learning a second language and by having fun at the same time.

Nowadays, a lot of people especially the younger generation play games and video games all the time during the week. In other words, there are a lot of people excessively engaged with this kind of leisure time. Broadly speaking, videogames are extremely engaging for its

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2 users for several reasons. To begin with “they encourage participation, motivate users to gradually achieving small goals, offer rewards or immediate punishments, and allow the difficulties of each level to be adjusted according to the players skills” (Prensky 2001, 2). It seems that videogames accomplish what teaching English requires; motivation, participation, engagement, and adjustments according to the needs and capacities of each player/student. It seems that videogames incorporate elements that can potentially serve to teach any subject, in this particular case, English.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the process of learning a second language and offer a viable solution to eradicate the current problems of boredom, disengagement, and demotivated students in English lessons. The proposed solution is gamification, a potential methodology that could be considered the perfect tool to motivate and engage the students in these second language lessons. Firstly, an overview of what learning a second language, in this case English, entails will be included as well as a review of the main factors that contribute to these students’ boredom. Then, we will analyse how boredom effects students’ process of learning. Afterwards, motivation will be described in depth as an essential element to be present in these classes. Finally, gamification will be analysed as the suggested solution to enhance these students’ learning of English and at the very end, we will thoroughly describe a didactic proposal to contribute to the language learning and teaching field.

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2. Methodology

Before starting with the analysis of this dissertation, I will provide data and information about the literature and sources used in this dissertation. Moreover, it will be explained the methodology that has been followed, so readers know how the goal of this paper has been accomplished.

In this paper, two central elements have been used to make the analysis. Firstly, journal articles have been selected for this work. These articles mainly address the concepts of gamification, second language learning, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and engagement in learning processes. These articles have been helpful to gather the main idea of these concepts and how everything combined can positively affect second language learning and how it can be beneficial to learn English. Moreover, these articles have helped reach a conclusion and propose several applications and uses of gamification to be implemented in English classes.

Furthermore, a questionnaire was conducted to 29 primary and secondary education teachers doing English as their subject. Google Forms facilitated the process of elaborating this questionnaire and receiving the results rapidly. The objective of this survey was to primarily know how these teachers do their lessons, which tools and resources use to do their English lessons. Moreover, they were asked to rank the level of importance they think motivation and engagement have in their classes. Finally, they were introduced to the idea of gamification, and some questions related to this concept, such as if they had ever heard about this concept, whether they had used it in their lessons, or questions ranking the level they thought gamification could help to do their English lessons and how it can help to engage and motivate their students. The fact that this questionnaire was answered by a total of 29 teachers makes the results not considerably comprehensive. Still, it hints at how Balearic Island educators think about how their English lessons are and how gamification can help their English lessons.

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3. Literature Review

Before starting the analysis of this dissertation, some concepts must be defined beforehand to wholly understand the main elements and have an idea of what these concepts mean, so as they are the basis of the analysis.

Motivation is one of the concepts that will appear several times throughout this dissertation. The main idea behind the term gamification is the enthusiasm for doing something, but lately “motivation [has become] a term that is commonly used among language teachers and language learners but perhaps many are not aware of the different theories related to this topic and their teaching implications” (Guerrero 2015, 1). For this reason, is vitally important to totally understand this concept. Moreover, motivation goes beyond a simple definition of enthusiasm. According to Tohidi and Mehdi (2011), there are two different types of motivation:

intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The former refers to the “motivation that is driven by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself and exists within the individual rather than relying on any external pressure” (Tohidi & Mehdi 2011, 2). Conversely, extrinsic motivation is “all the rewards like money, grades, points, threat of punishment… that encourages the performer to win and beat others” (2).

Another concept that should be explained is gamification. In recent years there have been many scholars analysing this concept, but most of them share the same idea of this academic methodology. According to Nah et al. (2013), gamification is the process of game- thinking and game mechanics to engage users and solve problems. It is a strategy to infuse ordinary activities or processes with principles of motivation and engagement based on the gaming concept. Additionally, Werbach and Hunter (2012) states that gamification is the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts. Another suggested definition of this term is “the application of game mechanics to non-game activities (Sheldon 2012, 75). So, basically, all the authors mentioned share the same idea of gamification, that is, the use of game elements in non-game contexts to help motivate its users.

Such are the elements that gamification incorporates that there have been numerous authors analysing these gamification elements. Some scholars such as Figueroa (2015), Nicholson (2013), Dicheva et al. (2015), Erenli (2013), Sanchez & Langer (2019) and more others share the idea that certain game elements such as points, leader boards, levels, badges, progress bar… are the key aspects that keep video-gamers users entertained and deeply engaged. Gamification, thus, try to extract these elements and implement them into education.

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5 Some people might claim that including games and videogames can be an inadequate approach to teach English to students because of the idea they have about games; that they are extremely addictive, they can be detrimental for students’ learning… However, a couple of studies have concluded that “gamification is emerging as a method aimed at enhancing instructional contents in educational settings” (Sanchez & Langer 2019, 3). This means that there have been a couple of proponents might be one solution to eliminate the boredom and disengagement that teaching English has. Moreover, it has been highlighted that “gamification show positive effects in motivating and inspiring certain behaviours as well as keeping them interested and willingly engaged with their learning environment” (Hong & Masood 2014, 1). Gamification thus, might be the perfect solution to solve the current issue while learning a second language and can potentially enhance its learning process becoming an engaging and motivating methodology.

4. Objectives

This paper has several aims apart from reaching the conclusion that gamification can be a powerful and supportive tool in English lessons.

The objectives of this paper are:

- Analyse the complexity of learning a second language.

- Establish the relevance that motivation and engagement have while learning English as a second language.

- Highlight the importance of intrinsic motivation while teaching English to students.

- Analyse the importance, usefulness and effectiveness of gamification while learning English.

- Offer possible gamification applications and methodologies which could possibly be used in class.

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5. Analysis

5.1. Second Language Learning and its Boredom

It is an undeniable truth that we currently live in a globalized world. Globalization is “a situation in which available goods and services, or social and cultural influences, gradually become similar in all parts of the world” (Cambridge Dictionary 2013). Such have been the influences that globalization has brought to our world that even communication has been one of them.

Globalization has provoked the extension of English around the world and, during the last two decades, “has generated a trend toward learning English as a second language” (Chester et al.

2015, 1). Considering English as one of the most spoken languages worldwide, it is not strange considering English as the lingua franca of the world, the language that the vast majority of the world can easily understand. The last century has been hallmarked by the importance of teaching English to the next generation of students. Being English the globalized language, it has transformed it into the essential language to learn. Academically speaking, “English [has become] the most important foreign language [and] communicating in English has become a core competence that should be developed in all academic contexts” (Escobar et al. 2019, 1).

There is plenty of evidence that states that English has become the best vehicle for cross-cultural communication and the importance that it has given to this language in all academic contexts.

However, learning English has not always been entertaining, and that is because of the widely claimed fact that learning English is challenging for some learners, and usually, it becomes a boring and stodgy task.

Boredom is a highlighted issue in all academic contexts. There have not been enough efforts to find other ways and methodologies to eliminate this prevalent problem in second language learning (L2). Remarkably, English is one of the subjects that boredom is mainly present and can negatively affect students’ desire to learn the language. Nowadays, it can be widely perceived that “boredom in the foreign language classroom remains an undervalued issue that so far has received little attention on the part of the teachers and some of them have neglected the existence of this boredom in their classes and have claimed that this situation is caused by their students’ laziness, anxiety, depression or personality factors” (Kruk and Zawodniak 2018, 2). Although this emotion can be affected by other factors rather than the same subject, according to Dumančić (2019), boredom is considered a prevalent negative emotion in education, and its detrimental effects impact students’ learning progress.

Additionally, some studies have claimed that “some students regarded language classes they

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7 attended as monotonous or unnecessary and language tasks as too difficult or too easy” (Kruk and Zawodniak 2018, 7). Although there might be some factors affecting students’ learning, it can be perfectly perceived that boredom is one of the main issues that can adversely affect the learning of English as learners are demotivated and lose interest in learning English.

The majority of the English lessons follow the same procedure. Teachers explain all the theoretical contents, mainly vocabulary and the different grammar units, where students

“passively receive information and the main aim is that students perform well on tests” (Zohrabi et al. 2012, 3). This teaching method makes more disengaging, and boring lessons since students’ only goal is to digest all the contents and do well on the exam since the only evaluation is passing the test. Making them passive learners and stating them just one goal leads to a boring scenario that “makes an individual disengaged from what goes on around them, which entails a combination of dissatisfaction, disappointment, annoyance, inattention, lack of motivation to pursue previously set goals.” (Kurk & Zawodniak 2018, 2). Moreover, the teachers who answered the questionnaire expressed that most of their students are demotivated (see Appendix 2) and disengaged (see Appendix 3). Having analysed some of the aspects that can lead to a dull atmosphere, it can be greatly concluded that it is of pivotal importance to find other ways of teaching the English subject and more motivating methodologies where students could see themselves as more active participants in their learning process.

Boredom thus can have several unfavourable outcomes regarding their learning processes, such as disappointment, annoyance and, demotivation. However, the issue of boredom in English lessons goes beyond these negative aspects. Although students usually can be disappointed or annoyed with their results, another pivotal aspect is also worth mentioning.

That is the effect that boredom has on people’s cognitive processes involved in learning.

According to Dumančić (2018), students’ thought processes start reflecting negative emotional states when they are bored. Consequently, it leads to loss of interest and difficulties to retain information and concentration on the lesson appear. Apart from stating some of the negative consequences that boring lessons can affect students, he also claims that dull classes are caused by the absence of goals, purposes, and the lack of effort to teach English according to students’

needs. In that way, teachers can convert these boring classes into motivating and engaging scenarios. The main aim is to eradicate boredom from these lessons and incorporate motivating and engaging methodologies. In that way, students will feel more participative and with more urge to learn English.

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5.2. Motivation and its Powerful Effect on Students’ Learning

Motivation and engagement are two key ingredients that must be present in students’ process of learning. Having analysed boredom and its detrimental consequences it has to students, it is vitally important to change the way of teaching because “today’s schools face major problems around student motivation and engagement” (Dicheva et al. 2015, 2). These two ingredients might be the solutions to this current and predominant obstacle in education. According to the questionnaire’s responses, the majority of them share the idea that engagement and motivation are two key aspects that lessons should have (see Appendix 1) to enhance their learning of English. Therefore, the majority of these educators believe that motivation (see Appendix 4) and engagement (see Appendix 5) are key elements in education. There is no doubt that these components play a crucial role in English lessons since it fosters students’ “eager to learn the language, willing to expend the effort on the learning activity, and willing to sustain the learning activity” (Ushida 2005, 5). From that statement, it can be reported that if the current problem is the lack of eagerness to learn English and students’ disengagement, one first issue to analyse for their great benefits is motivation.

Motivation is a complex concept to analyse because it depends on two aspects: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. As mentioned in the literary review section, intrinsic motivation refers to the motivation created by an interest or enjoyment in the task itself and exists within the individual. However, extrinsic motivation is that motivation, which is created utilizing rewards, grades, points… so as the user keeps being motivated on the task. Two academics make a profound analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation:

Typical students bring varying degrees of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to the earning arena. Intrinsic motivational factors found to be at work with most students’

involvement (the desire to be involved), curiosity (find out more about their interests), challenge (figuring out the complexity of a topic), and social interaction (creating social bonds. Extrinsic motivational factors include compliance (to meet another’s expectation, to do what one is told); recognition (to be publicly acknowledged);

competition; and work avoidance (avoid more work than necessary; Williams and Williams 2011, 5).

There are many aspects to consider when analysing motivation and how it can be beneficial for English learners. Both kinds of motivation are essential to keep students motivated and engaged since all the previously mentioned components are necessary to be present in a lesson

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9 (involvement, curiosity, interaction, recognition… Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation must work together to fully benefit from all the benefits it comprises when worked together.

It is vitally important to state that motivation in L2 lessons is very beneficial since it can improve people’s cognitive processes involved in education and additionally, “motivation, combined with several factors may influence the success of second language acquisition”

(Mantiri 2015, 3). The objective nowadays is to construct a motivating scenario where students feel eager to learn English. Hence, it is necessary to find one powerful device that make students feel participative and keeps them engaged in the task. To find the proper tool that can facilitate the accomplishment of a motivated feeling in class, it is imperative to understand what this new generation of students love to do, what makes them entertained and engaged.

5.4. Gamification

The new generation of people, the generation z, those born from 2000 up to the present day, were raised with screens, mobile phones, consoles… all those phenomena that globalization brought to our world. This new generation, called “digital natives” (Pransky 2001, 1) is inherently born with all these new modern devices. They perfectly know how to use them since it involves using more of the students’ knowledge and experience. Lately, there have been numerous efforts to implement these new technological and modern devices in education.

Although there will always be some advocates denying the usefulness of these new and modern resources for students’ learning, there are some teachers “pushing the boundaries of teacher education and professional activity systems” (Wanl 2013, 2) trying to introduce these new methodologies. They perceive they might have positive results for their students’ education.

Teachers have recently seen their pupils have more prospects to succeed in class if they adapt the contents to students’ preferences and interests. Learners must find the usefulness of what they are learning otherwise, they will instantly become demotivated and disengaged from the task. However, bearing in mind that one of the students’ preferences is playing video games, one great alternative is inserting game elements to English classes as if it was a videogame.

5.4.1. Videogames and Why This New Generation Love Them

Nowadays, this new generation has an enormous passion for games and video games. This kind of leisure activity gets them engaged and entertained for hours without knowing how many hours they have played for. According to Prensky (2011), videogames attract users for many reasons: they encourage participation, motivate users to gradually achieving small goals, offer

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10 rewards or immediate punishments, and allow difficulties of each level to be adapted to the player’s skills. Pupils are entirely engaged basically because it makes the users feel active rather than passive users. They have to discover the path and surpass different levels and this is what keeps them engaged in the task and what is more, they are rewarded with badges and points if they do well in the game. Hence, gamification tries to extract these game elements and tries to incorporate them in education, so learners feel equally engaged in school, in this case, in English lessons.

The idea concerning gamification and the incorporation of game elements in education might not like everyone but, there have been numerous attempts to incorporate these didactic and playful methodologies in other areas due to its potential to motivate and engage their users (see Appendix 6). Not only does gamification function in academic contexts, but also “has invaded various domains of the real world, including marketing, politics, health and fitness”

(Nah et al. 2013, 1). This is due to the positive outcomes that gamification has caused to these workers. However, the most relevant aspect in this dissertation is gamification related to education and its usefulness for students’ learning, particularly learning English. Thus, gamification can have great benefits for English learning since, thanks to this methodology, students keep engaged and motivated. According to Llorens et al. (2016), the principles of video games can help achieve an innovative and effective training model that particularly enhances students’ motivation. Furthermore, Nand et al. (2019) conducted a study where he collected opinions of 120 children and reported that a lot of games stimulate thinking and curiosity and […] the desire to win and overcome the different tasks or levels to make progress and earn rewards and recognition.

It can be concluded that gamification is a potential tool that can enhance English language learning for those students who are not motivated enough or find this subject too boring to follow. There is plenty of evidence that “gamification is currently implemented with educational purposes as a strategy to foster student engagement in different content areas including L2 learning” (Figueroa 2015, 10). Finally, there have been many researchers trying this methodology to see the great effects in education. For instance, “Lawley, a professor of interactive games and media at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), notes that when implemented properly, gamification can help enrich educational experiences in a way that students will recognise and respond to” (Stott and Neustaedter 2013, 1). It can be totally demonstrated the great and beneficial effects of gamification. However, the complex issue is analysing how to use the different elements that video games and this way of teaching possess

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11 because in order to function properly is vitally necessary to know how each element works and how they should be combined adequately.

5.4.2. Elements Which Make Gamification a Powerful Device

Gamification has been proved to be an enriching methodology with high satisfaction levels (see Appendix 7). As analysed previously, this is because of the extraction of video games elements such as points, badges, leaderboards, levels, etc. and its insertion in education. They are the main cause that keeps learners engaged and motivated. However, the main idea behind gamification is not inserting all the elements mentioned in the literature review section but selecting those which the teacher considers necessary and appropriate for their students’

learning. For this reason, it is vitally necessary to explore and profoundly analyse each of these elements.

In the literature section it was mentioned that some scholars shared some of these elements: points, levels, leaderboards, progress bars and, avatars. Firstly, Figueroa (2015), considered that a gamified activity should include points, badges, leaderboards, progress bars, performance graphs, quests, levels, avatars, social elements, and rewards. Then, Nicholson (2013) mentioned the same elements as Figueroa, but he also includes leaderboards.

Additionally, Dicheva (2015) enumerates other elements apart from the previously mentioned ones. They are virtual currency, challenges, and feedback. Moreover, Sanchez and Langer (2019) incorporate the elements of hints, and finally, Stott and Neustaedter (2013) emphasise the aspect of freedom to fail, which is also relevant in a gamified lesson.

After mentioning all these elements, it should be analysed the importance of some of the most indispensable ones that a lesson should have present to be a motivating and engaging lesson. Firstly, it can be observed that all these elements have a rewarding outcome for its players. This is because these elements make their users, in this case, learners, active participants and, it helps to motivate and engage them. Points are one of the essential elements here because when “players are recognized for their achievement, their sense of gratification increases which further enhances their motivation and engagement” (Nah et al. 2013, 3). This is also related to badges which make users feel recognised for the good task they have done.

Another element worth including in an English lesson is leaderboards where students can see their progress and compare their progress with their classmates, but it can likewise be “a demotivating factor since it can create an enormous gap between the leaders and the others”

(Nicholson 2013, 3). Here, educators must analyse their class to adapt the contents, tasks, and

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12 activities to each individual. The main objective with leaderboards is to find an adequate equilibrium between everyone while “the L2 educator implements progression by systematically promoting healthy competition” (Figueroa 2015, 9). Competition must not be perceived as a negative component in the class since if it is adequately adapted, it “can sustain or increase one’s engagement and focus on learning” (Nah et al. 2013, 3). All in all, these are the essential elements to incorporate in the L2 lessons since it has great and beneficial effects on students’ learning since it keeps them motivated and engaged while studying and practising English.

5.4.3. Gamified Applications and a Proposed Didactic Methodology

Nowadays, due to globalization and all the technological advancements that modernization has brought to our world, there has been an increasing development of educational applications that facilitate teachers’ job. Some of the teachers who answered the questionnaire mentioned having heard about some applications such as ClassDojo, DuoLingo, Kahoot, Quizlet, Socrative, Flipgrid (see Appendix 9), and some of them mentioned having used some of them in their English lessons. The most used applications were Kahoot, Quizlet and ClassDojo (see Appendix 10). Each of these applications works as a supportive tool for the lesson, and it should never substitute the lesson but work as a supportive tool for students. It is strongly recommended to use them in English lessons since the majority of these teachers who have used these resources believe that “gamification can potentially enhance second language learning”

(see Appendix 8).

After mentioning some of these applications, I will propose one methodology which can be used in class and can facilitate L2 learning. It has been mentioned that nowadays, there are many problems concerning English classes and their boredom issue. Thanks to gamification, it has been stated and affirmed that this recent methodology is a powerful device to solve these problems of engagement and motivation. The proposed application for this methodology is ClassDojo which can be combined with other applications such as Quizlet and Kahoot. The decision to select ClassDojo rather than others is because this application fulfils the aspects that have been analysed in this paper since it “[provides] the instructor with a platform for students behaviour management and [also] helps motivating L2 learners through strategies that combine avatars, points, and leaderboards” (Figueroa 2013, 18). ClassDojo, thus, accomplish the objective to motivate and engage the learners by using these elements which have been analysed in this paper, such as points, levels, leaderboards and avatars.

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13 ClassDojo is an application where teachers can create a virtual class with their students.

Each student is assigned a random avatar, and each one has a scoreboard next to each of them.

With this application, the teacher can also make some random groups when they think it is

Picture 1. An example of the main page of ClassDojo

necessary to do an activity. Additionally, students’ relatives can observe their children’s progress if teachers allow them to do so. The main objective for these students is to earn points.

Throughout this paper, it has been concluded that these elements that gamification possess serve to motivate and engage these students, and ClassDojo has them. Regarding the points system, teachers can establish when a student can be assigned points or conversely, they can remove points when they are not doing so good in class. Apart from doing activities, tasks and rewarding students with points when they correctly do a certain activity, it is also imperative to establish some other points related to ethical values. In that way, students will not concentrate exclusively on doing a correct activity but help those who struggle with the task. Here are some points teachers can establish in their classes:

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Picture 2. An example of positive and negative points in the ClassDojo application

After having established all the positive and negative points, the task is done. As mentioned before, ClassDojo is a supportive tool that it is strongly recommended to use with other applications such as Kahoot, Flipgrid and other activities. Finally, I would like to include some activities that teachers could do with the support of this application:

- Activity 1: This activity is addressed to grammar and vocabulary contents. After explaining and introducing the concepts (grammar rules and new vocabulary) to students, a good activity is creating groups of 4-5 students each. With the ClassDojo application, the teacher can do these groups randomly. Then, the teacher can create some questions with the Kahoot app. Each teacher will select different questions since each teacher will create and adapt the questions according to the level of each class. Then, they will be asked to answer the questions on the Kahoot page. After finalizing this activity, the teacher will reward these students who have done better in the questionnaire with points in the ClassDojo app, but as said before, they will also be rewarded if they work cooperatively, if they help others, etc. Then, students will see how many points have obtained with this activity, and as points are accumulative throughout the academic year, they will observe who is the most regular and constant student, creating a friendly competition in class which helps to motivate and engage them.

- Activity 2: This activity is addressed to reading, writing and speaking skills. Here, students will be asked to create a story from pictures shown in several dices. Each die has several random pictures on each side and depending on the pictures that have been chosen, students have to create a story with the elements that have appeared. Then, they will be asked to come in front of the class and narrate the story to their classmates. Here, teachers will evaluate speaking and writing skills. They can give or remove points for a

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15 good writing structure, use of different connectors, use of particular vocabulary, good pronunciation, speaking mistakes, or grammar mistakes. Moreover, teachers can even make students feel participative in the evaluating part, asking them to evaluate their classmates’ work. Then, teachers will give some extra points to those who have been ranked at the top according to their classmates.

- Activity 3: This activity is addressed to writing and listening skills. This activity aims to improve students’ comprehension of certain words and how they are written correctly. It is very similar to dictation but with some changes. Teachers will select around 30 words they think their students struggle to comprehend and write correctly.

Then, they will organize these words according to their difficulty and each word correctly written will be assigned certain points depending on their level. If a word within the first group is written correctly, the student will be rewarded with 20 points, 50 points in the second level, 100 points in the third level and 200 points in the fourth level. The teacher will create two groups and will ask one student of each group to come to the blackboard and write the selected word. If they write this word correctly, they will have 20, 50, 100 or 200 points. After the first round, the teacher will ask another student of each group to write another word until each student has written a word. In the end, there will be a recount to know who has won this game, and the winners will be rewarded 5 points each in ClassDojo. Apart from points rewarding teamwork and helping others, each student who has written the word correctly will have a point in ClassDojo too.

These are three different activities that can be perfectly used in each lesson since teachers can adapt them according to their students’ needs and preferences. These are three different activities, but teachers can develop some other activities incorporating the ClassDojo application since it has been observed that this application is the perfect resource to gamify English lessons and motivate and engage students while learning English.

6. Conclusion

In conclusion, learning a second language is currently a monotonous and boring task for this generation. Educators simply explain the theoretical contents such as vocabulary, grammar rules making students passive learners since their only job is to memorize what teachers explain.

This problem of passivity and monotony in English lessons has been concluded to be detrimental for students’ cognitive processes involved in learning. However, recently many

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16 scholars have analysed the concept of motivation and how it can ameliorate students’ learning.

For this reason, it is necessary to find new methodologies which might fascinate these learners.

Gamification is a recent methodology that possesses all the aspects to motivate and engage their users since it incorporates some elements (points, levels, leaderboards, badges) that video games possess, and students love to do. These game components make students feel recognized for their job, which motivates them to do the task. ClassDojo is one of the gamified applications that fully incorporates all these essential elements in a gamified lesson. This app creates a virtual class where students can see their progress by accumulating points throughout the year. It is also worth mentioning that it can be used with any kind of activity, what makes it a great and powerful device to foster motivation and engagement to students and thus, ameliorate their eager to learn English as a second language.

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7. Works Cited List

Cambridge Dictionary, 4th ed. s.v. “Globalization,” accessed June 22, 2021, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/es/diccionario/ingles/globalization

Chester, S et al. “Effects of Situated Mobile Learning Approach on Learning Motivation and Performance of EFL Students.” Journal of Educational Technology & Society 19, no. 1 (2016): 263-276.

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8. Appendix

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

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Appendix 5

Appendix 6

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Appendix 8

Appendix 9

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Gamification to Enhance Second Language Learning