Design of a serious game for the use of foreign languages: Towards a relevant didactic system

Abstract

Our reflection paper is the continuation of an ongoing R&D project and focuses on the design and development of a didactic system for second language learning. This didactic system is based on the potential of the edutainment scenario for language learning. The system aims at practicing Spanish as a second language in a French secondary school. We consider that the combination of computer science, linguistics, language didactics and natural language processing (NLP) issues could offer operational solutions to language learners. We have therefore proposed an edutainment scenario capable of integrating the potential of serious games. The scenario has been designed and developed according to the linguistic needs of learners. In this paper, we propose to focus on four notions that make part of the design and development process of our edutainment scenario: serious games, teacher mediation, dictation and formative feedback.