Radical tunes

要旨

Music and rhythm are powerful tools that can be employed to enhance learning and memory. While games are commonly utilized to aid in second language acquisition, few have explored the implications of sound on learner's ability to draw and remember logographic characters (such as those in Chinese hanzi, Japanese kanji and Korean hanja). We created Radical Tunes, a kanji drawing music game, to explore the impacts of incorporating music on players' ability to retain meaning and stoke order of several kanji. In this paper, we describe the design rationale for Radical Tunes, and present results from a pilot study comparing a music focused version of the game with one that uses non-musical sound effects. Results show that while both conditions improved players' short-term ability to remember/draw kanji, there were no significant differences in improvement between the conditions. However, the use of music did improve immersion---an important factor related to learning. This work has implications for designers of second language acquisition games, and how they can incorporate rhythm and music into their games to increase player engagement.

主題