Publication

Outlining an experiment design of gamifying language learning in low-resource contexts: Kurdish learning in university, language courses, and on web-based applications.

Quánzī Mǎ, Christian Schuler, Xueqing Zhang, Meiyi Chen, Mahîr Dogan, Raman Ahmad, Tomohiro Nagashima, Timo Baumann, Josef van Genabith

The Workshop on Multi-modality and Multi-lingual Language Learning at AACL-IJCNLP 2026 · 2026

@inproceedings{mǎ2026outlining,
  title     = {Outlining an experiment design of gamifying language learning in low-resource contexts: Kurdish learning in university, language courses, and on web-based applications.},
  author    = {Quánzī Mǎ and Christian Schuler and Xueqing Zhang and Meiyi Chen and Mahîr Dogan and Raman Ahmad and Tomohiro Nagashima and Timo Baumann and Josef van Genabith},
  booktitle = {The Workshop on Multi-modality and Multi-lingual Language Learning at AACL-IJCNLP 2026},
  year      = {2026},
}

Abstract

Low-resourced and marginalized languages suffer from generational attrition, with dwindling incentives for younger speakers to learn a language to which they may be linked culturally but which offers limited opportunities for use in education, employment, and other domains of everyday life. Gamification techniques and the integration of digital support structures may hold considerable potential for language revitalization and digitization efforts. This work explores a research design that explores approaches targeting both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation for learners of Kurdish varieties across three contrasting learning environments. By running comparable conditions in environments that differ sharply in institutional pressure, cost, and voluntariness, we aim to produce a multifaceted account of how gameful design and behavior-oriented guidance interact with learner contexts, and thereby inform future initiatives in low-resource language learning