Gamification in education – utilization in teaching of languages

This paper focuses on how language teachers in Finland reacts and uses gamified learning applications. Motivation for the study, apart from the personal interest, is the on-going digitalization process of Finnish schools. My original research questions included: 1) what are the benefits of gamification in teaching? 2) how different applications and platforms are utilizing gamification elements? 3) are teachers using these applications and platforms to their benefit? For this study, I have reviewed different learning theories such as Skinner’s Operant-Conditioning-theory of behaviorism, Chomsky’s Universal Grammar and Felder and Silverman’s Felder-Silverman-model. I familiarized myself with the concept of gamification and also tried out plethora of different learning applications and platforms in order to assess what gamification elements are used and how they are showing. Most common gamification elements are progress bar which shows users progression towards different goals, different forms of points or virtual currency that can be used to purchase new features, personalization items and special classes and badges which shows your achievements. In order to find out the teacher’s attitudes and experiences I conducted a survey which was sent out to language teachers. The survey divided the respondents into two groups, adopters and non-adopters, based on if they have utilized some of applications mentioned in the survey. According to the survey, the concept of gamification is not familiar to all of the teachers but majority of them have or are using gamified applications and feel that they are a good supplement to their teaching. Major benefits include instant feedback, competing with peers in the class and multisensory experience. Gamified applications also seemed to make learning more fun while not completely fixing some of the motivational issues amongst students. Most used applications were Quizlet, Duolingo and Kahoot. Research also identifies some required improvements in order to achieve more benefits from gamification and other digital tools, such as more training for the teachers in order to strengthen their competence and clear vision and strategy to generate positive culture attitude in schools towards gamified applications and digitalization.