Shai Ginsburg, Aimee Kwon
Type: Lab
Learning languages through or with gaming are not new in and of itself. What makes the “Bonne Chance” project unique is that we are trying to teach French through designing a game instead of simply playing it. Through an interdisciplinary approach to modern software development, students from multiple academic backgrounds with varying experience levels are able to work together in a cross-functional community. Language and culture immersion is being explored in a new technological and educational realm by applying game-based learning mechanics to an elementary French-language curriculum. Cary Staples, Sebastien Dubreil, and their students from "The App Farm" discussed the project of the game.
“On the surface, the union of the humanities and video games might seem odd, the former focused on thoughtful reflection, context and contingencies, and the latter on reflex, immediacy and instantaneous feedback. In practice, however, this union is increasingly proving to be an enormously profound one, with games providing a platform for more experiential ways of engaging history, literature, philosophy, and even religion.” (Humanities Arcade, 2016)