View Content #24800

From http://fltmag.com/gamified-imagined-community-simulations-imsims-language-learning/

In this fascinating article, Felix Kronenberg describes the use of an Imagined Community Simulation (ImSim) among German learners at Rhodes College. Here is an excerpt:

"At Rhodes, the growth within the community follows the progress in the program’s textbook. Students develop their identity in the first semester, “being born” and learning about numbers, colors, people, and the immediate environment. Then they “grow up,” learning about food, customs, holidays, geography, and history. Their alter egos, or avatars, go to school, later to college, and then work on their CVs and open a business in the city of Pfefferhausen. During this process, each professor involves a shifting array of face-to-face teaching and communicative technologies. For example, students create an alter ego Twitter account, describe their development, and follow each other and actual German speakers. They may create a business or “Wohngemeinschaft”(WG) website, they may participate in a shark tank or elevator pitch activity, which can take place in a physical location or through a digital platform, such as Voicethread or Flipgrid. They may create digital or physical promotional materials for their business, a video for their WG, or participate in a business mixer."

Read the full article at http://fltmag.com/gamified-imagined-community-simulations-imsims-language-learning/ and learn more about the Pfefferhausen project at http://www.pfefferhausen.org/projectinformation/