Vocabulary Mashup using Online Resources and Games for

Vocabulary Training at School

Georg J. Schneider

and René Ackels

Department of Computing, Trier University of Applied Sciences, Schneidershof, Trier, Germany

Keywords: e-Learning Hardware and Software, Children's Education using Computer Support and K12 Students,

Mobile Learning (M-learning).

Abstract: This paper describes a general architecture and an implementation of a mobile system that helps teachers and

pupils at school to learn vocabulary of a foreign language for specific lessons. The system can be setup in a

flexible way that that either vocabulary from an arbitrary course book or individual vocabulary sets can be

specified as input by a teacher. Accordingly it can be adapted to the curriculum of a class. Furthermore the

system keeps user information at an own server for security reasons and it does not cause any additional costs,

e.g. for additional vocabulary sets. Online resources like synonym and antonym services, definition services

or pronunciation services are integrated into the system for providing further learning activities. Finally game

based elements shall make the learning activities more attractive to the students. The progress of the learning

process will be provided for pupils and teachers. The system is targeted to facilitate the processes in a German

school environment.

1 INTRODUCTION

Learning a non-native language at school is a task that

almost all pupils have to deal with during their school

education. In order to be proficient in a language,

pupils have to master grammar and vocabulary of that

specific language. Especially learning a vocabulary is

a task that is often regarded as arduous and boring.

However without knowing the vocabulary a language

cannot be learnt. Tschirner (Tschirner 2003) points out

that “Beginners need a lot of vocabulary and this as fast

as possible, so that they can also learn by reading and

listening on their own.”

In our paper we want to tackle this task in way that

adolescents have a more playful approach to the

vocabulary learning using one of their favourite

devices, their smart phone (Anderson and Jiang 2018,

p. 2), (Ebadi and Bashiri 2018), (Kukulska-Hulme

2018), (Godwin-Jones 2014) and (Qun 2014).

Looking at the use of smartphones we can see that

beneath the use of social media, games play a

significant role for this group (Anderson and Jiang

2018, p. 9). Especially (Kapp 2014) shows a positive

impact of gamification on the learning outcome.

(Papadakis 2018) looks in more detail into the choice

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7194-2394

of games for learning situations. (Cruaud 2016) regards

the effects of using gamification in the context of

learning a foreign language in more detail.

Hence the idea is to combine these two trends in a

smart phone app using different game based

approaches for the learning process.

The general way of learning a vocabulary is a list

of words with their translations. Often several aspects

are not taken into account like the pronunciation or the

fact that a word has different translations, i.e.

synonyms that have the same meaning but are not used

in the belonging text or lesson. On the other hand there

are situations where it is beneficial to know not only

the word but also the opposite, the antonym.

Sometimes neither of this information is helpful. In this

case a definition of the word is needed or even a

picture.

Using a smart phone with internet connection can

help to overcome these challenges, since there are

websites that offer exactly these services (for free).

Therefore there is not really a need to enter this

information again. The pronunciation is mostly

available not only as phonetic transcription also as a

sound file spoken by a professional native speaker.

Webpages for synonyms and antonyms are also

Schneider, G. and Ackels, R.

Vocabulary Mashup using Online Resources and Games for Vocabulary Training at School.

DOI: 10.5220/0007763305190526

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019), pages 519-526

ISBN: 978-989-758-367-4

519

available for many widely-used languages. The same

applies for pictures.

Hence the integration of these services in an

application has an additional benefit for the learner.

As another issue we want to address the question of

vocabulary acquisition. Usually the vocabulary, a pupil

has to learn, belongs to a text or a lesson. Concerning

vocabulary sets belonging to a unit in a course book,

resources may already be electronically available.

Looking at a specific text, there may either be a printed

list given to the learner or the student has to create this

list on her own. Our approach aims at supporting

different strategies for this task. Building a vocabulary

set for the app using an authoring interface is one way.

Another way is the acquisition of the vocabulary using

photos or scans of a list and supporting the process

using an OCR (optical character recognition, i.e.

extracting text from an image or a photo) software for

example.

In general the system must be easy to set up and to

use for the pupils and for the teachers in order to be

used daily in real school environment, where neither of

them has the time to deal with complicated

administration processes of the software.

While working with the system, the progress of the

learning process shall be accessible to the learner and

the teacher. The learner can clearly identify her

weaknesses and the teacher has a good overview of the

overall knowledge and progress of the class.

Finally data security is an important topic when

talking about under aged children. Our concept aims at

a system that can be exploited in a school, using the

available infrastructure, so that no data has to leave this

environment. This topic is especially interesting

compared to commercial systems where users have to

trust a third party.

The paper is structured as follows. We will first

start with the related work discussion. Afterwards we

will describe the general architecture of the application

and the implementation for learning the English

language for German schools. Finally we will conclude

with a short summary and the discussion of our future

work.

2 RELATED WORK

The idea to offer vocabulary training on smart phones

or web pages is not new and there are several systems

similar to our approach. (Godwin-Jones, R. 2018)

gives a good overview on this topic. We target the

specific question of supporting the vocabulary learning

at school, where a certain lesson has to be learnt. The

learning is often evaluated in form of a graded

vocabulary test. Hence it is important that the complete

vocabulary of this unit is part of the learning material

and that at least not an extensive list of other words

would belong to this list.

2.1 Related Systems

(Makoe and Shandu 2018) describe the

implementation of an Android app for learning English

vocabulary. (Qun 2014) and (Bor-Tyng 2017) showed

positive effects on the learning process for learning

English vocabulary with their mobile applications.

Since we want to support German pupils we need a

localized user interface. Other commercially available

systems like 24/7tutor or AccelaStudy are also

available only in English. In addition to the question

and answer mode, they offer games as an alternative

learning approach.

A comprehensive overview of existing systems can

be found in (Bárcena et. al. 2015).

Therefore in the following we discuss two

commercial systems available in German that are

suited to our situation.

2.2 Commercial Systems in German

Language

The Cornelsen Vocabulary Trainer (Cornelsen 2019)

offers an App for Android and iOS for learning

languages like English, French, Spanish, etc. The app

offers vocabulary sets as in-app purchase belonging to

lessons of their course books. The vocabulary can be

customized for own purposes, but only on the

individual smart phone. Helping with the

pronunciation of words is integrated trough playing

sound files of these words. The user cannot write the

words using the keyboard, she can only select words

from a list. Furthermore user statistics and sample

phrases are integrated into the system as well. Game

based aspects are realized only on a single user basis.

The user gets a score for each word she could translate

correctly. The faster she is, the higher is the score.

Another application is Phase6 (Phase6 2019). The

system is also strongly related to a German course

book publisher and works together with their books.

The app is available for several languages and offers

vocabulary sets as in-app purchase belonging to units

of their course books. Game based approaches are also

part of the system, like “LiveMatch” where pupils can

play against each other. Additionally the system

provides the possibility to use it from different

interfaces, like PC, tablet or smart phone. Further

vocabulary can be added into the system and the state

is synchronized between all accessing devices.

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Figure 1: System architecture.

In a learning group mode, a teacher can supervise the

learning advances of the group.

As a summary of those two systems, which are

exemplars for a range of systems, we can see that

users have to pay for the vocabulary they have already

purchased with their books. Furthermore the systems

do not provide the whole range of services that would

be possible by using the already available resources

on the web. Game based approaches are already

integrated for an alternative and playful learning

process. However adding additional games is only

possible for the publisher. Finally and most

significantly, the systems are strongly tied to the

publishers. Switching from one publisher to another

is neither supported nor intended.

2.3 Conclusion

As a consequence we will suggest an open platform

that can integrate freely available online resources in

order to build a system using different services that

are useful for the learner, including game-based

aspects.

The general idea of the usage is that teachers can

easily integrate the system in their school lessons,

ideally by taking a picture of the vocabulary that the

class shall learn. Furthermore they shall have an

overview of the progress of the class with that

vocabulary.

The learners shall be able to select lesson and start

learning, either individually in a traditional question

and answer mode or using a game. Furthermore they

shall be able to challenge their classmates using the

offerings of the system.

Another aspect in a school context with younger

children is the security of the data. Even if teenagers

are rather unthoughtful about giving away

information in their social media profiles over the

internet, schools and parents are sensible when it

comes to storing personal data. This fact urges for a

solution, where the application and the personal data

is under full control of the school.

3 TECHNICAL CONCEPT

The idea of our application is to support the learning

of the vocabulary for a foreign language. As we

mentioned in the beginning, we want to create a

flexible architecture that offers several services. The

services range from the vocabulary acquisition i.e. the

authoring over the integration of pronunciation

services, synonym/antonym services or word

definition services until to the game-based approach

that shall offer a playful touch to the learning task.

The general architecture is shown in figure 1. The

architecture illustrates that the app communicates

with external services using the HTTP-protocol. An

interface should be defined in a way that changes in

the services API or switching from one service to

another will not affect the core implementation of the

app for providing a flexible integration of different

services supporting different languages.

interface ISynonym {

List<String> getStringList

(String word);

}

The code shows a basic example of an AIDL

specification of the interface for the synonym service.

Other services would look similar. The pronunciation

service however returns an URI for the media file.

Especially minor changes in the APIs of the

connected services have already appeared during the

realization of our prototype. Therefore a separation of

the two sides using an interface helps keeping the

implementation modular and flexible.

Vocabulary Mashup using Online Resources and Games for Vocabulary Training at School

521

Figure 2: User interface for vocabulary input (left), display of synonym and pronunciation (middle) and query (right).

User data and vocabulary resources are located on

a web server belonging to the system. User data are

needed for personal achievements like high scores or

group games. The vocabulary can easily be updated

and changed for a whole class when it is stored on a

server instead of the individual device. Furthermore an

additional authoring interface can be realized for more

powerful input devices.

The integrated games use the vocabulary resources

and offer playful approaches on top of the traditional

question-and-answer task. The user profile keeps local

user information and is also updated with information

from the User Management.

Finally the vocabulary acquisition can be realized

in different ways. On the one hand a traditional

authoring interface can be provided with input fields

for the word and its translation. Maybe the publishers

of the course book may offer an electronic export

service in a way that the vocabulary can be gathered

automatically. Finally a service where the user will

take a photograph or scan a side with words and

processing it with OCR may be an additional way to

make the acquisition of the vocabulary more

comfortable.

4 IMPLEMENTATION

The implementation is divide into the server and the

client part, the app.

An overview of technical implementation aspects of

this type of systems is given in (Godwin-Jones 2011).

4.1 Server Side Implementation

Our implementation is based on an Ubuntu Server

with a MySQL database. The database is used to store

the vocabulary, which is associated with an ID

specifying the set, e.g. the lesson.

The user data is the general information about the

user as well as the score. Furthermore the information

about group games is stored, in our case the duels.

More specifically we store the information about the

duel type, requested duels, accepted duels and

finished duels. The duel type refers to either an

identifier belonging to a set of words that has to be

translated or to one of the games that exists on the

smart phone.

The programming language PHP is used on the

server side. The queries are SQL statements executed

from a PHP script. The results are communicated to

the client in the JSON format.

4.2 Client Side Implementation

The client sides is implemented as a native Android

app. Android has been used as a first target platform

since it has a market share of more than 75% by

December 2018 (Statcounter 2019). Furthermore we

support learning the languages English and also

Spanish for a German user in our first version.

The user interface is an Android activity that

serves as an entry point for the app.

The vocabulary acquisition is realized in our first

version as a layout with two input fields (see figure 2).

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Figure 3: Vocabulary games: Hangman (right), word search puzzle (middle) and duel request (right).

More sophisticated possibilities are planned for

the future. After entering the vocabulary, the words

can be queried in both ways, foreign language to

mother tongue and vice versa. Figure 2 shows on the

right hand side a several choices for the translation of

a German word. The user has to push on the button

with the correct answer. Another possibility not

shown in the picture is a text input where the user has

to use the soft keyboard of the smart phone to enter

the word. At the beginning of the vocabulary training,

the user can configure how many times she will be

asked for each word. The presentation of the words is

random.

The screen in the middle of figure 2 shows three

additional buttons. One button will display the

definition, the other button will show synonyms and

the third button will launch the media player that

pronounces the word. These features are realized

using external services that are freely available in the

internet.

The definition service is realized using

“Dictservice” (Dictservice 2019). The service is

available only for a limited amount of requests

without further agreements, which was sufficient for

our prototype. Requests can be submitted in the

easiest way through an HTTP GET request and

encode the word in a URI. The following request will

look up the definition of the word “house”.

http://services.aonaware.com/DictSer

vice/DictService.asmx/Define?word=house

Afterwards the response has to be parsed in order

to extract the definition and to be rendered in the user

interface.

The synonym service is realized in a similar way.

“Datamuse” (Datamuse 2019) offers the possibility to

send requests to a server asking for synonyms. The

free version is limited to 100,000 requests per day.

Requests can also be submitted as an HTTP GET

request with the word encoded in the URI. The

following request will look for synonyms of the word

“house”.

http://api.datamuse.com/words?rel_sy

n=house

The response is encoded in the JSON format and

has to be processed in the client in the same way as it

has been done for the definition service.

The last external service that is integrated into the

app is the pronunciation service. In this case we have

used Miriam-Webster (Miriam-Webster 2019). Their

Merriam-Webster dictionary API is free for non-

commercial use under 1000 queries per day. We use

the reference to the sound file to invoke the media

player.

The playful approach for the vocabulary learning

app is realized as a number of games that are

integrated in the app. The app is designed in a

modular way so that further games can be added in

the future. Right now we have implemented the

games “Hangman”, a word search puzzle and the duel

(see figure 3). However the duel is more a multiplayer

Vocabulary Mashup using Online Resources and Games for Vocabulary Training at School

523

mode for all of the games and the general vocabulary

query as a game of its own.

Hangman is a game where the user has several

attempts to find the correct translation for a word. In

our case she has five possibilities. The user gets

feedback on the progress of the game through the

stepwise creation of the final picture. Different

characters are offered underneath the word and the

leaner has to push the button with the correct

character starting with the first letter.

The word search puzzle is matrix of characters,

where a word from a unit is hidden either horizontally

or vertically. In this case a learner has to find the word

and swipe with her finger over the word.

The duel mode is way to challenge another user in

order to see who is more proficient on the vocabulary.

As the word duel says, it is a two player game. The

traditional vocabulary query can be selected for

challenging another learner. The games can be

selected as well. Each user will be asked the same

vocabulary. The one with the highest number of

correct answers will win.

The learner can access her general score and the

results of the duels at any time.

5 CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE

WORK

First we will give a short summary of our

achievements. Afterwards we will talk about the open

questions and improvements of our concept.

5.1 Summary

In this paper we have presented an app for learning

vocabulary. The app is targeted at young learners in a

school context. The general idea is that learners can

use their smart phone in any situation to rehearse their

vocabulary.

Additionally we target the integration and import

of vocabulary for specific lessons or texts. Therefore

the app is flexibly usable since it has neither

additional costs for the vocabulary nor is it tied to a

specific publisher.

On top of the basic vocabulary query we have

implemented a couple of games in order to make the

process of vocabulary learning more entertaining.

Especially the duel mode offers the possibility to not

only work alone on the learning but also to compare

their proficiency with other learners.

Freely available web resources have been

integrated into the system as well. Therefore not only

the vocabulary is displayed but also definitions,

synonyms, antonyms and the pronunciation without

having to enter all this information manually.

Compared to the commercial systems our

approach has the functional advantage that services

like finding synonyms, antonyms or word definitions

are included. Since we use a modular approach

further services or games can be integrated easily, as

we will suggest in the following section. Furthermore

teachers can select books of different publishers or

they can even use vocabulary for special purposes

like newspaper articles or classic literature.

Additional games can be implemented as well.

Finally data security aspects can be tackled in the

school environment in a way that no information is

transferred to third parties.

5.2 Discussion and Future Work

In the future we have to deal with several questions.

First of all we have to evaluate if our concept and the

belonging system are really useful in the school

context. We have only just finished the

implementation of the system and were not yet able

to conduct a user study. Our research hypothesis will

be:

(A) Students have more pleasure in the

vocabulary learning

(B) Students perform better in regard to

memorizing vocabulary compared to the “old-

fashioned” approach using a book.

Even though there are already analyses of

applications using gamification aspects, as we have

stated in the introduction, we have to see if this is true

for our implementation as well. Therefore a careful

evaluation with a group of pupils is needed to see if

our hypotheses are correct.

Primarily the integration of such a tool in school

lessons in a way that it fits the didactic approach of

the teacher is crucial (cp. Papadakis, Kalogiannakis

2017) in order to gain the acceptance of the educators.

Therefore our next step is a discussion with teachers

for foreign languages.

Afterwards a comparative user study with pupils

has to be conducted. The prerequisite for our

hypothesis (A) is the evaluation of the acceptance of

our system. Beneath the general user interaction with

our app, the integrated web services must prove to be

reliable. They must produce the correct results for the

requests as well. When it comes to dropouts, mistakes

or ambiguous results the reaction of the learner has to

be evaluated carefully in order to make sure that the

system behaviour does not produce negative effects

on the learning process. Then we can start comparing

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the effectiveness of our system compared to other

methods.

A future research question would also be the

proficiency of the learner with the vocabulary if

possibilities like synonyms, antonyms, definitions

etc. are integrated easily accessible into a learning

environment. It is imaginable that users acquires a

deeper understanding of the words and can use these

word more appropriate.

From a technical perspective there are several

additional features we want to realize. Some of the

commercial systems show photos instead of words

and the user has to find the translation. An integration

of such a service is possible in the same way as we

have integrated the other web services. For example

Unsplash (Unsplash 2019) offers a photo search

service under similar conditions.

While listening to a native speaker is one point,

speaking a word correctly is a further challenge.

Voice recognition would therefore be another option

to exploit, e.g. using the service from the Duolingo

(Duolingo 2019).

An important point in relation to the web

integrated services in general is the free usage of these

services. If the user had to pay for the services it

would lead to the question if the system will remain

affordable. Especially, an important advantage of our

implementation would be challenged. At this point

issues about framework agreements would arise,

which should be dealt with. However these are topics

we would have to discuss with legal experts.

Additionally versions for different platforms

would be meaningful for not excluding groups of

learners. A version for iOS would therefore be a next

step and an implementation as web based application

so that a learner is more flexible in the choice of her

accessing device. A careful evaluation of cross

platform development tools like “Xamarin” or web

based frameworks like “React Native” must be

carried out as an alternative development basis.

Consequently a synchronization between the devices

would be another challenge.

Finally security aspects have to be evaluated

carefully. The communication as well as the user

specific data has to be secured carefully. Especially

there has to be a policy about the data access that is

strictly integrated into the system, see (European

Union 2016).

On the long run we plan to publish the system as

an open source project. Therefore localization is

another aspect that has to be looked into more detail

in order to adapt the user interface for learners from

other countries to their language.

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