UC Santa Cruz

People have many reasons to want to learn a foreign language: some want to enjoy foreign media in its original form, some need it for business or travel, personal enrichment, and so on. Roughly 1/6 of Earth's population's learn languages with logographic writing systems (LWS) such as Chinese, Japanese and Korean as their native tongues. These peoples harbor an enormous cultural, economic and academic wealth. As a result, these languages are a popular choice for a variety of learners ranging from serious businessmen to K-pop and anime fans. Whatever the motivation, learning additional languages carries a slew of cognitive benefits and should be encouraged.

Maintaining the motivation and persistence needed to learn a language is a difficult task, and the problem is amplified for learners with alphabetic roots tackling an LWS language. One needs to memorize around 2000 characters to be considered literate. This is routinely done through rote memorization, and the prospect discourages many would-be learners. When it comes to LWS as a foreign language, there is a divide between conversational fluency and literacy unlike that in any alphabetic language. My research aims to help bridge this gap through development and evaluation of LWS learning games. In this, I make a point to rely on insights from LWS teaching researchers, best practices of educational game design, and advice from the videogame industry experts.

My approach brings innovation in two areas:

I contribute to LWS instruction by introducing two LWS-learning game designs that focus on production tasks, while the vast majority of games out today target recall only.

I contribute to educational game design field by exploring the use of music as a mnemonic for learning, and conceptualizing the potential future use of notorious commercial game engagement and retention mechanics in an educational context.