SPROK

The overarching aim of this project is to evaluate different commercialization routes to find the best business strategy for Sprok, a digital second language (L2) learning game (DLLG) for immigrants, mainstream classrooms and private consumers in order to make it a highly successful global educational game for digital second language learning. An additional aim is to continue the applied research of Sprok. Sprok’s development stems from the significant achievement gap between natives and immigrant students and the challenges many adult immigrants face in obtaining work due to insufficient language skills. Supporting L2 learning is essential to improving educational, economic, and social opportunities for immigrant populations. Sprok’s design will encourage growth in the Finnish and international community by developing linguistic skills as a core class material in mainstream and immigrant classrooms. As a core material in these classrooms, it is designed to complement traditional workbooks while still allowing teachers to understand student progress. Although Sprok is designed to meet the needs of immigrants and mainstream classrooms, it is well-suited for private consumer use and, thus, has benefits for increasing the number of highly qualified workers, which fills the gap in the ageing Finnish and global population.

The uniqueness of Sprok is that it is based on the highly reputed Finnish national core curriculum, the Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) skills, academic research, and cultural knowledge. Additionally, it will have the following educational features: a design for full classroom integration with a teacher backend, a monolingual approach (i.e. the prototype uses Swedish to teach Swedish), collaborative gameplay, an explorable environment, a design enabling expansion to a broader audience, and a feedback algorithm to enhance learning. The game will be developed in an iterative process that requires the active involvement of potential end-users. This ensures the game is both educative, fun, and attractive for various stakeholders.

Sprok is an open adventure digital role-playing game for mobile devices and computers designed to accelerate language learning and provide learners with cultural knowledge. This is done by allowing players to explore a typical town based on Finnish language curricula and CEFR. Sprok’s design supports students’ interactivity and allows teachers to assign the DLLG as homework. Sprok’s main activity is a card game exposing players to contextually based vocabulary, scaffolded grammatical concepts, and cultural knowledge in line with research on memorization. Memory games supporting functional CEFR language skills encourage players to explore, learn at their own pace, and have fun. For an overview of Sprok, see the trailer at https://youtu.be/RWlRQagbdl8.