Using game-like apps and methods to train employees is becoming very popular across Fortune 500 companies including Google, Microsoft, and IBM. Why? Because “Gamification” can work significantly better compared to “traditional” seminar instruction! It’s been demonstrated that Gamification works better compared to simple memorization. Let’s have a look at an example of how this applies to your child learning Greek:
Method 1: Memorizing the Greek alphabet from a list: “Αα, Ββ, Γγ, Δδ, Εε…Ωω”.
Method 2: Our new game “Alphabet Bubbles”, where your child is in control of a deep sea diver asked to hit the letter-bubble corresponding to an audio prompt. Hitting the right letter-bubble results in a “well done” being heard and five points added to their score, whereas hitting the wrong letter-bubble results in a buzzing sound to signify the error and a loss of three points.
Which of the two methods above seems more effective for your child to learn, train their memory, and have fun in the process? No doubt it’s Method 2. As a parent, you know your child – like most children – probably doesn’t like investing must time in something he or she doesn’t enjoy, and Method 2, as all games at Ellinopoula.com, will probably result in him or her coming back to play more and learn more!
Gamification
As in the “Alphabet Bubble” game example above, the answer to the question whether children can learn Greek while having fun is a most definite “NAI” or “YES”!
So how have we done it? By taking Greek language curricula and merging them with classic game themes children love such as mazes, races, haunted mansions, outer space, and playing with numbers!
Greek Vocabulary in Context
One of the keys to learning Greek is putting the language into meaningful context. One of our most popular games, “The Maze Game”, teaches shapes in a fun and challenging way; your child becomes interested in the Greek name of the shape because they have to lead Baby Penguin to his parents by making a path with the correct shape. In no time they will learn ‘τετράγωνο’, ‘κύκλος’, ‘ρόμβος’, ‘αστέρι’, ‘καρδιά’, and ‘τρίγωνο’!
The Fun Factor
Fun and learning go hand in hand! Take for example one of our most exciting games, the “Haunted Mansion”, a game featuring a young witch on a spooky Halloween night, hovering on a flying broomstick in a bat and ghost filled sky outside a haunted mansion. Children love the spooky Halloween feeling as the witch prompts them to find several objects in Greek like umbrellas, olives, numbers, and wood logs, to the background noise of crackling doors, meowing cats, and eerie music. Children are much more eager to keep coming back to engage in this type of Greek language context compared to just learning the same words in a non-game context that they are less likely to pay attention to and more likely to forget.
Motivation to Advance
Your child needs not only to be engaged in a meaningful Greek language context, but also to keep progressing gradually by building vocabulary, syntax, and overall understanding of Greek. Games offer a great platform to achieve this as children need to master certain words before progressing to the game’s next level.
For this reason, games come in an “Easy”, “Harder”, and “Hardest” version for your child to progress naturally. Take for example “Learning my Body”; in the “Easy” version of the game, children have to identify basic body parts such as the nose, the eyes, or the ears, whereas in order to answer correctly in the “Harder” version, they have to answer questions relating to their function, for instance “what do we use in order to smell?”, and finally, in the “Hardest” version, where children get to reinforce the previous vocabulary and answer questions on inner organs and functions relating to the brain, veins, and others.
Fun for All!
Whether your child likes racing, memory games, playing with numbers, learning about the human body, sports, or outer space, Ellinopoula.com has something for everyone! In fact, our latest game, “Alphabet Bubbles”, is such an entertaining game that many parents are reporting playing it on their iPads! Visit our Game page and select which games suit your child the most!
