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Language Games

Language Games. Sonja Eisenbeiss (University of Essex) seisen@essex.ac.uk. Overview. What are language games used for? Which role can they play in student projects? What can language games look like? Where can I find out more?. Supporting Language Development Using Games.

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Language Games

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  1. Language Games Sonja Eisenbeiss (University of Essex) seisen@essex.ac.uk

  2. Overview • What are language games used for? • Which role can they play in student projects? • What can language games look like? • Where can I find out more?

  3. Supporting Language Development Using Games • child and adult second language learners • typically developing monolingual children • multilingual children who need more language input for one of their languages • children with speech and language impairments or general learning problems

  4. Language Assessment Using Games • speech therapy • school • research on language development

  5. Student Projects on Language Games • Motivating students to learn about • properties of their (second) language • communication • Transferable skills training • Research/analytical skills • IT skills • Communication skills • Work Placements and Collaboration with Charities

  6. Learning About Linguistic Properties • What is the generalisation in the target language? • For instance, when do speakers use ‘s and of? • Jane’s leg vs. the leg of Jane • my mother’s leg vs. the leg of my mother • my table’s leg vs. the leg of my table • How complex can linguistic structures get? leg dog’s mother’s father’s Jane’s

  7. Learning about Communication • Raising awareness of people’s motivation • to engage in communication • director/matcher games • speaker/listener games • co-player games

  8. Director/Matcher • A “director” describes a scene/object etc. and a “matcher” who is not able to see this scene/object, has to recreate it. • E.g. Bevan (2010): Whose Ballon is red? Two sets of pictures, both with animals that have balloons, one with coloured and one with blank balloons. The child “director” tells the matcher where to put the colour.

  9. Wendy Bevan (Undergraduate 2010)

  10. Speaker/Listener A speaker provides information for someone who does not have access to the information. Variant 1: speakers retell a story they have heard while the listeners were out of the room Variant 2: speakers tell a puppet that cannot see what is going on

  11. Co-Player • All participants are involved in a game and provide each other with information to co-ordinate their actions. • For instance, players can be involved in a construction or puzzle game.

  12. The Co-Player Puzzle Task • The child describes contrasting pictures on a puzzle board, adult finds the matching pieces, child puts them into the correct cut-out. • We use exchangeable pictures and puzzle pieces. • This can be used to encourage the use of particular forms or the encoding of particular meanings.

  13. Using Contrasts • Requires participants to be specific in picture descriptions: • different actors and objects: the dog vs. the cat • action reversals: dog chases cat vs. cat chases dog • object properties: • the big red balloon • the small red balloon • the big blue balloon • the small blue balloon • different possessors: the lion’s balloon vs. the elephant’s balloon • ….

  14. Some Puzzle Materials

  15. Whose balloon is red? (Wendy Bevan)

  16. Adding Complexity

  17. Nikola Koch (MA-Project)

  18. Nikola Koch (MA-Project)

  19. Getting Speakers to Talk, not Point • Whoever starts pointing looses a point (sticker, etc.). • Give them something to hold: • a two-handled very deep drawstring bag with the rewards for the puppets: explain that you need help handing out rewards as the bag is so deep that you cannot pull out rewards easily; and explain that pouring them out will get the puppets fighting over them • a magnetic fishing rod that they can use to place items in the game

  20. Al-Houti (PhD-Project)

  21. Using IT • Pictures, photographs, or videos can be created and manipulated using free or commercial software: Photoshop, drawing software, video-editing software, educational software like Clicker, etc. • Standard presentation software (Powerpoint etc.) can be used for displays of pictures etc. on the computer. • Free presentation and reaction-time measurement software can be used with students that like to “programme” their own games and measure participant’s reaction times (e.g. DMDX combined with game pads etc.).

  22. References Eisenbeiss, S. 2009. Contrast is the name of the game: contrast-based semi-structured elicitation techniques for studies on children’s language acquisition. Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 57. http://www.essex.ac.uk/linguistics/publications/errl/errl57-7.pdf Eisenbeiss, S. 2010. Production methods in language acquisition research. In: Blom, E. and Unsworth, S. (eds.) Experimental methods. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 11-34. (pre-print available on academia.edu)

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