Improving Language Skills in Graphic Engineering Courses Through Gamification
摘要
Bilingual engineering subjects are increasing their presence in graphic engineering courses at universities, as addressing the learning process from a multi-lingual perspective certainly enhances and optimizes the quality of the studies. Nevertheless, as the aim of these subjects is to guarantee the capacities of undergraduates to communicate ideas and designs in a visual manner, scholars’ possibilities to improve their writing or speaking skills are significantly limited. For this reason, a new gamification-based methodology has been developed to include, from its foundations, a combination of graphic content and language skills as the core of subject’s goals. Students have been surveyed to determine whether they perceived, based on their impressions, that the experience has led to an improvement in their language skills. Both students and professors have registered a significant improvement in the former’s speaking skills, especially regarding to the accurate use of technical vocabulary and proper grammatical structures. Another positive result of the implemented methodology is the task reduction for professors, who can now focus on an individualized evaluation of each student rather than leading the gaming experience. Additionally, based on the experience gathered by professors in each session, comments on the perceived improvement in students’ linguistic competence as well as new manners to continue optimizing the methodology are suggested.