Francopass: A community-oriented gamified web application for French learners and education students

Abstract

Gamification is commonly defined as "using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, and promote learning" (Kapp, 2012, p. 10). Gamification strategies have been adopted to design educational tools across a wide variety of disciplines. This article focuses on Francopass, a gamified web application which encourages university students to engage with the local French-speaking community in Edmonton, Alberta. Canada. Although Alberta is not officially a bilingual province, it plays host to a long-established, vibrant, and diverse francophone community. Francopass motivates second language learners by encouraging them to engage with this community. A beta trial of the application took place between September and December 2019. Students taking French courses at the University of Alberta had the option of participating in the study, which included a team's competition that was announced to students on October 18, 2019 and closed on December 6, 2019. Feedback to assess the effectiveness of Francopass was obtained using a two-part "Before" and "After" questionnaire. Interestingly, students who identified themselves as less comfortable with French in the "Before" questionnaire had a tendency to score high on Francopass. A relatively small subset of students responded to the "After" questionnaire (n=12). They indicated that attending events increased their motivation to learn French, that they had learned about francophone culture in Edmonton, and that the application helped them find ways to engage with the francophone community that they would not have known about otherwise. The trial also concluded that certain game mechanics, namely teams and co-operative messages, are useful in motivating students. Francopass is unique among gamified language-learning applications because it places a unique emphasis on the role of the local minority language community and creates opportunities for students to practice their French in an authentic setting.