25.11.2022: Game-based intervention supports children's English language learning in India (Patel)
In India, English is viewed as a language of opportunity and plays an ever-increasing role in society. As a result, parents enroll their children in English-medium schools in hopes of providing their children with a better future.
In her study, MA (Educ.) Priyanka Patel evaluated whether 'GraphoLearn English Rime', a computer-assisted phonics-based intervention, effectively improved children's English literacy learning. She also looked at the relationship between children's mother tongue, Hindi, and their second language, English, reading skills. GraphoLearn is based on the Finnish learning-game ‘Ekapeli’.
The game could support the knowledge of letters and some rimes
In the studies, children were given an educational game to play during the school day. Some groups played the GraphoLearn game while others played a maths game. The children's skills, including basic literacy and phonological skills, were assessed before and after the intervention.
"The findings showed that the children who played GraphoLearn made better progress on tasks that were computer-assisted than the children in the control group who played the maths game. The differences between the groups were statistically significant on in-game letter recognition, rime recognition and word recognition," says Patel.
The GraphoLearn intervention had a stronger effect among children with stronger pre-existing English skills.
In addition, the results of the PhD study showed that children's phonological skills in both Hindi and English predicted reading proficiency in each language. In line with previous studies, results also showed that phonological awareness skills in Hindi significantly predicted word reading in English. This opens the door for understanding how children’s existing knowledge of their first language can be better leveraged for literacy instruction in English-medium classrooms.
Research on technology-enhanced learning is needed
The thesis provided valuable research evidence that literacy instruction based on teaching letter-sound correspondence is effective for children attending English-medium schools in India.
"However, there is a significant need for greater research to understand how phonics-based instruction can be implemented in English-medium classrooms across India and the role that ed-tech can play to augment learning in these environments with the goal of reducing learning poverty across the country," Patel concludes.
MA (Educ.) Priyanka Patel defends her doctoral dissertation "Evaluating a computer-assisted phonics intervention for improving foundational English literacy learning in multilingual India" on November 25, 2022.
Opponent Professor Young-Suk Kim (University of California) and Custos Professor Minna Torppa (University of Jyväskylä). The public defense is held in English.
The dissertation can be read online.
More information:
Priyanka Patel, priyanka.v.patel@jyu.fi
