Satrih – TLT458 – Scratch Write-Up

Learning theory and instructional design

According to Warschauer and Healey in Sørensen and Meyer (2007), “In language

teaching games have often been used to stimulate motivation and authentic communicative

practices, as games have been conceptualized as the ‘fun factor’ of language learning.” Many

Indonesian people who are learning English, not only my students but even my fellow English

teachers find English grammar especially the sixteen tenses complicated and difficult to apply in

every time they use English for speaking and writing. My Scratch project is expected to sort of

making the sixteen English tenses much easier to learn. However, in this first session of the

project, I provided only ten questions, which means only ten forms of the English tenses. I

decided to start with those ten forms as they are the most often used. There will be more and

more sessions of this game project because I intend to give more sentences examples for future

use of the game.

The main character in this first session of the game is a reindeer, who gives the direction

of how to play the game, which is related to the game goal. The reindeer as a model of a teacher

will give reinforcements every time the player or student answers correctly and encourage them

to try again if their answer is incorrect. For each question, the reindeer will move from one bench

to the other to the table and so on until the last question. The student cannot proceed to the next

question if the ongoing question has not been answered correctly. That will give a chance to the

student to identify not only the tense but also to study the sentence pattern more carefully. After

putting an answer into the answer box, the player or student must hit Enter to proceed. The
player or student will win the game when they finish answering all the questions correctly and

the reindeer will say “you win” and hide.

Storyboard

The backdrop is a forest with a park.

There is a white round table and three white
round small benches surrounding the table.
The reindeer stands on the table as the main
character. His role is like a teacher.

When the player/student hits the flag button,

the reindeer shows up and asks “What’s
your name?”
The player/student types his/her name on the
answer box below, and hits enter to proceed.

The reindeer then says “Hello” followed by

mentioning the player/student’s name.
Now the reindeer gives the direction for the
player/student to win the game. The
player/student has to read carefully the
sentences forms given and identify the
English tenses by choosing between option
A or B, which he/she believes to be the
correct answer.

Here is the first question. The sentence form

example is in quotation marks and followed
by the answer options. The options are two
names of the English tense forms.
The player/student just needs to write A or B
in the answer box and hits enter.
The next 9 questions are in the same pattern.

If the player/student gives an incorrect

answer, the reindeer will say something like
“Err.. No. Try again!” or “No, you are not
correct.” or other similar expressions on
repeats the question again.
The player/student can try again by putting a
different option into the answer box and
again hit Enter to proceed.

If the player/student gives a correct answer,

the reindeer will say something like
“Excellent”, “Wow, you are so incredibly
intelligent!!!” or other similar expressions
and followed by a clapping sound.
The reindeer will then glide to another side
like from the table to a bench on its right
side and give the next question.

When all ten questions are answered

correctly, the reindeer will give another
praising expression and there will be another
clapping sound too followed by the reindeer
saying “YOU WIN!!!” and hide. The game
is over.
 This is how some of the inside script looks
like.

Project target audience

The target audience of the Scratch project of mine is learners of English as a Foreign

Language. English grammar especially the sixteen tenses tend to be the most difficult for

students to understand and apply it in their real life situation. In fact, not to mention students who

are just beginners in learning English, even many of my cohorts who have been learning English

for more than twenty years and teaching it are still unable to understand the difference and the

application of each English tense in the real life situation consistently. That is why it is important

to teach English tenses in a way that is not overwhelming.

Learning goals and objectives

The objectives of learning English tenses through this Scratch project of mine is to make

learners of English as a Foreign Language enjoy studying the English tenses and be able to apply

it in every sentences or utterances they make easily. They can also memorize each tense easily

because they are unconsciously learning about it when they consciously feel that they are

playing. That will make learning the English tenses become an easy subject.

How to accomplish the learning objectives

The learning objectives of this Scratch project of mine can be accomplished by

modifying and improving it continuously. Modifications and improvements can be made by

changing the backdrop and the main character along with the sentences to be identified by

English learners in terms of its English tenses.

Success measurement

The success of this project can be measured by less or more learners are interested in

playing the game to challenge themselves on how good they understand the English tenses. As

this project can be modified easily anytime, English learners can always test their improvements.

Teachers are expected to change examples of sentences for learners to identify the English

tenses. The expectation is that the more often students play the game for their English grammar

exercises, the better they will perform and they will easily memorize and apply the rules in using

English.

How students gain knowledge from the project

Students can always improve their English grammar especially, if teachers always update

the questions. One tense form alone is for million and million sentences examples, so we can

imagine how many sentence examples can be made of sixteen English tenses forms. Besides,

sentences are informing things of any disciplines. By learning the English tenses from sentences

examples, students actually can learn other subjects. Sentences can be made for specific target

audiences in terms of their English mastery level. Simple basic sentences can be made for

beginners like elementary school students, a bit more complex sentences can be targeted for

secondary school students, and advanced sentences examples can be made for advanced learners.

Reference

Sørensen, B. H., & Meyer, B. (2007). Serious Games in language learning and teaching–a

theoretical perspective. In Proceedings of the 3rd international conference of the digital

games research association (pp. 559-566).