Naslov
Arabic Speakers as Croatian Language Learners Electronic Educational Games as a Support for Learning

Autori
Matijević, Maja ; Mihaljević, Josip

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u zbornicima skupova, cjeloviti rad (in extenso), znanstveni

Izvornik
INFuture 2019: Knowledge in the Digital Age / Bago, Petra ; Hebrang Grgić, Ivana ; Ivanjko, Tomislav ; Juričić, Vedran ; Miklošević, Željka ; Stublić, Helena - Zagreb : Odsjek za informacijske i komunikacijske znanosti Filozofskog fakulteta Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2019, 135-145

Skup
7th International Conference The Future of Information Sciences (INFuture 2019)

Mjesto i datum
Zagreb, Hrvatska, 21.11.2019. - 22.11.2019

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
Arabic language, Croatian as a foreign language, refugees, educational games, game development, language learning, SLA

Sažetak
In the last decade, Croatia has been the transit or receiving country for many refugees who come from the Middle East and Africa and who mostly speak Arabic as their mother tongue. Native speakers of Arabic are faced with many difficulties in the process of learning Croatian. Croatian is written from left to right, and Arabic from right to left. Phonological inventories of Croatian and Arabic are very different, vowels are generally not written in Arabic (or more precisely they are not written with graphemes), grammar is very different, etc. All this demotivates students at the initial stage of learning. Based on the experience of one of the authors with teaching Croatian to asylees and asylum seekers who mostly came to Croatia from the war-ridden Middle East and African countries in the last few years and who are mainly speakers of Arabic, the authors started developing educational games which could facilitate their initial steps in learning Croatian. Games focus on the acquisition of the Latin script and the Croatian phonological inventory (games in which the player writes the pronounced sound, hangman with or without the picture of the required word, etc.). As the difference between capital and small letters does not exist in Arabic, games that tackle certain orthographic issues are also developed. All games have explanations in Arabic that prevent ambiguity and show differences between Croatian and Arabic. The learning material also emphasizes the difference between the phonemes p and b and introduces as many vowel games as possible. The goal is to reduce the beginner’s fear of language learning and motivate the learners.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Informacijske i komunikacijske znanosti

POVEZANOST RADA