Language learning is at the heart of all the actions carried out by BoysLingo and the results did not take long to show themselves. Find out about the project resources and how the school community welcomed and valued them!
Aware of the gender gap that in language learning sees girls achieving better results than their male peers, in addition to the Handbook and the Good Practices, two other important resources were implemented in 2024 to support primary and secondary school teachers in addressing the difficulties of engaging students in the classroom and achieving equal learning outcomes through the use of digital tools and gamification.
The App and the BoysLingo Teacher Training Curricula represent two fundamental outcomes of the project, both aimed at identifying techniques and ways of learning to stimulate the motivation to learn of young people.
More specifically:
- The BoysLingo App, launched at the beginning of the year, features 8 gamified learning scenarios in each of the languages of the partnership (40 scenarios in total), designed to improve the language skills of young people, especially boys; 4 of them are aimed at primary school students, while the other 4 at secondary school students, but all of them are also available in English, so that they can test their language skills in both their mother tongue and English. In line with the national educational programmes of Italy, Greece, Poland, Cyprus and Ireland, the App offers engaging activities, customisable characters and concrete examples, as well as interactive quizzes and constructive feedback to ensure a stimulating learning experience.
- The Teacher training curricula, aimed at educators, school heads and school staff, consists of 3 learning modules, hosted on a specific e-learning platform, which aim to provide them with theoretical and, above all, practical knowledge and skills to effectively organise and implement language learning activities in the school environment through the use of digital tools, such as gamified mobile learning environments. At the end of the training course, a certificate is issued.
In March 2024, more than 1,000 students, both male and female, in the project’s partner countries, participated in classroom piloting, engaging in exploring the 40 interactive scenarios offered by the App. After the piloting, the students were asked to evaluate their learning experience and the usefulness of the app. The vast majority of them stated that they loved playing with the language and that both the content and the interactivity of the learning experience were engaging and fun, and that the feedback provided by each scenario after selecting the answer helped them learn new things or better retain topics previously discussed in class. With the help of their teachers, students also shared some comments on improving the learning experience and the level of interactivity, helping us to understand how to fully meet their learning needs, making the most of the advantages of gamified and mobile learning experiences!
In Italy, in particular, the piloting was welcomed with great willingness and enthusiasm by the Istituto Comprensivo Statale ‘Da Vinci L.-Carducci G.’, where several Italian and English language teachers, through the use of computers, tablets, interactive whiteboards and smartphones, integrated the digital gamified activities proposed by the App into their lessons, successfully involving 229 primary and secondary school students.
Starting in June 2024, on the other hand, the Teacher Training Curricula was launched. The resource is designed to offer theoretical and practical knowledge in relation to the following topics, each of which constitutes a learning module in itself:
- Development of language skills and the gender gap;
- Integration of mobile pedagogy in the classroom;
- Application of gamification in learning design.
Accessible in complete autonomy via registration on the project’s e-learning platform (https://elearning.boyslingo.eu/it/), the course allows teachers to share their opinions at the end of the learning experience, enabling us to make any improvements to respond more accurately to their actual needs in the field. Currently, the evaluations collected are very positive and provide us also with very useful hints for improving the course. The piloting will end shortly, so we invite anyone wishing to contribute to it to register and fill in the evaluation form, also available here: https://forms.gle/vshZUAMkiGZvqYnh7.
For more information contact Alice Schirosa: alice.schirosa@cesie.org.
About the project
BoysLingo – Enhancement of boys’ language skills through gamified mobile learning is financed by DG EAC, Erasmus+ Programme, KA220-SCH – Cooperation partnerships in school education.
Partners
- Sysco Polska Sp. zo.o. (Poland, coordinator)
- Neophytos Ch. Charalambous (Cyprus)
- 1st Primary School of Rafina (Greece)
- CESIE (Italy)
- CARDET – Centre For Advancement Of Research And Development In Educational Technology Ltd (Cyprus)
- Eurospeak Limited (Ireland)
For further information
Read more about BoysLingo, visit the web page https://boyslingo.eu/ and follow us on Facebook.
Contact Alice Schirosa: alice.schirosa@cesie.org.
