Integrating language learning approaches in existing Edu applications.

[Avinash Zebisky]

Hi,

My initial idea about making a SuperTuxKart for learning languages seemed
quite artificial for learning languages. And I was told to look at existing
project like Pairs, and see if I could integrate it for learning language.
And am thankful for the feedback.

So these are some of the ideas I could come up with -

*Pairs* - A memory and pairs game for KDE

   - This is a simple and classic game and can be easily modified for
   learning languages.
   - We could ask user to make pair of alphabets from his first language
   and the language he wants to learn.
   - We could ask him to pair words. For example apple and manzana(spanish
   for apple)
   - We could ask him to pair common phrases.
   - Pairing image and its corresponding translation in other language.
   - Paring a audio of word(as in KLetters) and its corresponding text
   translation.
   - Actually there can be many combinations of pairs.

*KLetters* - I like this game a lot, having audio of 25 languages is indeed
cool :)

   - We could add a animated situation for the user where he would be
   picking up responses in different language. For example - We could create a
   restaurant situation and user would hear common queries from waiter, guy
   next to him etc. User will respond to these audio by picking one of the
   four options shown to him.
   - The Animated situation and click response type of game is quite
   similar to most of the flash games that used to made 4-5 years back.
   - Animation might come be heavy, so instead of animations we simply add
   images for each situation.

*KTurtle* - I like this. It's a cool game for teaching programming.
I find that this game has a lot of potentiality. And certain graphics and
creativity can make this a game great. The amount of coding and results
that can be created in the canvas is simply awesome.

   - Adding puzzle and missions. These puzzles will be solved by coding in
   editor.
   - Briefly, lets assume turtle to be a ninja turtle. This ninja turtle
   will be given a set of task like saving the this girl-friend. He'll be in a
   maze and his goal is to reach his girl-friend by traversing the maze and
   avoiding/destroying the obstacles.
   - Now, this traversal can be a hard-coded set of instructions about the
   maze. Ninja turtle will be printing things to preform actions. For example
   - Ninja has to print fight to kill the obstacle(a cockroach) in the maze.
   Similar, to fight we can print climb,dig, super-power etc.
   - Instead of hard-coding user can also enjoy algorithms like simple
   breadth for search, depth-for-search. However, this can only be possible if
   user can create his own functions(am not sure if its already implemented).
   - With functions, we will get the power of recursion. For example, in
   the maze there is a certain pattern of performing things like you have to
   walk forward every 10 step and then turn right. Or killing cockroaches
   every 10 steps. So user can easily write a recursion for this and avoid the
   long hard-coding :)
   - I have lot of ideas about this game, but writing here will only make
   it longer.

*Kanagram - *A classic game.

   - We can add a plugin for downloading words in different languages.
   - User can try anagrams of different languages.

*KHangMan* - Another classic game.

   - Similar to above one, we can do the same thing for KHangMan too.
   - User will be shown word in different language and he'll need to guess
   that word in his desired language.


I only thought about language applications. I know its long but bear with
me.
Kindly, review these idea and provide me feedbacks :)

Cheers :)
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