AR Castle Tour: Heroes From The 6 Corners of Europe

Words by: CLIL Heroes teacher’s team

Heroes, Castles, Legends and CLIL Gamification is an Erasmus+ KA219 (projects for school education co-funded by the European Commission) focusing in exchanges of lower secondary school students and the share of good practice among schools and teachers of Turkey, Malta, Poland, Greece, Italy and Spain. The project aims to improve motivation towards learning of English/German as second language and CLIL teaching by using gamification strategies. We developed a game based in traditional tales and legends of castles to make foreign language learning more motivating, and to make students aware of the old traditions behind the storytelling of video games and game mechanics. Every stage of the game took place in a different castle of each one of our countries.

The project proposal is based on collaborative creation of sets of questions and hints related to language, grammar and history, to play indoor by using IT tools, and a hard copy of the questions to play outdoor. The international team of teachers and students collaborated to develop storytelling, game mechanics and contents. Students wear tale-inspired dresses and some theatrical accessories in national monuments for a more immersive experience to enhance learning and motivation, but we didn’t plan at the application stage to use Augmented Reality technology because we judged it as having a high learning curve at early 2015.

The project development revealed unexpected challenges to manage a very large group of international students outdoor, featuring a wide range of English skills, from native/bilinguals to low performers and many different accents involved.

Teachers found to be very useful for better understanding to make available a written version of questions, but handing out printed copies in a large playground would make the game too similar to an average lesson, only changing scenery and fellow’s citizenship. Another issue is castles as emblematic national monuments where in most cases it is not allowed to mark the ground or to use loudspeakers, or even the use of theater accessories and dresses, as happens in Greece. Asking the students to sit and wait for their turn provides the impression of a traditional classroom, even outdoor, but it was the only solution because students in motion tend to follow their own teachers and school fellows instead of follow general instructions. It is also boring and tiresome for everyone, and especially challenging for teachers as they need to manage group behaviour, ensure understanding of questions and even properly listening, and assess answers in open spaces at the same time.

We discovered that the use of virtual reality platforms was not suitable: headsets isolate people from environment, and interfere team interactions. Take advantage of heritage environment was also worth, so augmented reality became the best solution, but how?

We found Metaverse platform around september 2017 and we can say that fuelled our project and provided new possibilities: it is a very fine and reliable option that enables the creation of imaginative scavenger hunts for Language or Art teachers or secondary school students without coding skills. We even tested the use of 3D recreations of castles and objects, or geolocation features with varying levels of success.

2D characters and simple quizzes were enough for our purpose, and worked great, especially taking into account that we used international data connections and game takes place in somehow remote areas.

Students were really happy to feel they could own their learning process and receive playful, instant feedback of correct answers, collaborate to guess the meaning of key words or riddles, and to interact with scenery as characters appeared as if they were a part of the monument. Teachers were spared of heavier management and assessment tasks and chores, and could focus more on ensuring that no student was left behind and to coach them. Early project evidences like mark reports show that vocabulary retention and language performance have significantly improved, as well as collaboration and general soft skills. If you are curious about our game and want to learn more about our traditions or solve the Ghost’s riddles, please type #CLILHeroes and enjoy!

You can access the whole gallery at clilheroes.institutelpalau.com/gallery

General project development, lesson plans and methodology guide available on www.clilheroes.com (alternative address clilheroes.institutelpalau.com)