ALE

Spring 2014




Vocabuician
,i. .ocolaor.; roc|



F: |o/wo Il)a (aow It ko,o;
lo/.: o-/1+/7o1+




Statement of Needs:
People always say that words are powerful weapons in which they have the ability of turning you
into the happiest person or the extreme opposite. Of course, it depends on "who" is saying that
word as it will carry a strong impact on you if it was from someone you care about.
Nowadays, memorizing vocabularies and their appropriate uses can cause hard time for Arab
elementary kids and their parents as well. It is our duty as academics to figure out the best
instrument to make the learning process easy and fun. Who doesn't listen to music ? we all do
and we just feel great once our favorite song is played on the radio. Kids will enjoy listening to
music and learn lots of words unconsciously.
Goals:
1.Memorizing tons of vocabularies
2. Enjoying the learning process and seek for it
3. Be familiar with words usage (pronunciation, grammar..etc)
4. Feel confident to speak English and approach other ways of learning
5. Be able to use vocabularies in correct sentences
6. Enjoy the English class and as a result getting high grades
Target Audience:
Arab kids from 5-10th graders are the ones who need to have extra portions of vocabularies
during these crucial years of their lives at schools, and also to prepare them for the high school
and university earn solid basics. Since English is the second language lots of students care the
less about getting high grades in English and probably don't have the enough support from their
families and society as a whole.

Personas





Name: Saeed Rawas
Age: 13
Elementary school: 6th grader
Country: Sultanate of Oman Salalah
Access to Ipad 3 ( addicted )
Loves music and watching movies
(favorite apps The voice+Sing!
Karaoke by Smule)
**Hates learning English vocabularies !
I +(r+;; w;+( ||ron| (dI( !
Goals:
I want to be able to memorize English language vocabularies in
a fun and appealing way
I don't like the traditional methods that our teacher impose on
us in order to remember especially because English is my second
language




I l++.+ u ||+
no| o( +)nco|ou
ou (|+u ;|n)+u|;
+uo ||+ +oruu
(roc+;;!
Name: Sondos AL Qatan
Age: 34
Country: Kuwait
Occupation: Makeup Artist (professional)
Family: one boy ( Ahmad 5th grader )
Ahmad has access to I-Pad, Laptop and a cell
phone and enjoys playing games
**Hates English language subject (face difculties
with vocabularies )
Goals:
I want my my little boy to have the best learning experience possible , I want him to enjoy studying and ask
for more
We live in the 21th century with unlimited access to technological resources, it is not that hard anymore to
create fun and engaging methods of learning and dump the old fashioned ones
Frustation:
I face hard time with Ahmad and English language vocabularies on a daily bases, it forms his worst
nightmares
He often gets distracted with his I-Pad or cell phone , that makes me wonder if there is a possible way to
take advantage of these devices to solve his issue with vocabularies and who knows maybe also for other
subjects ?!
Landscape Audit
1) Flocabulary
An online library of songs, videos and activities for grades K-12. Hundreds of thousands of
teachers use Flocabulary to supplement their instruction and engage students. The websites goal
is not only to raise test scores, but also to fostering a love of learning in every child. http://
www.flocabulary.com/what-is-flocabulary/



2) Multimedia-English
Multimedia-English is an interactive website to learn real English through videos and activities,
including a Virtual Classroom for online teaching. The website does not completely focus on
vocabulary, but it teaches vocabulary through fun songs. http://www.multimedia-english.com/
videos/section/kids-5/channel/ vocabulary-6





3) The Voice: On Stage by StarMaker
Although it is not completely an educational tool but it can be, since the player basically have to
sing and read the words, it is in a way similar to karaoke, with time the player memorizes tons of
words and recognize their meanings within contexts. Of course there is a goal to the game, as to
unlock as many songs as possible which means even learning more new vocabularies
unconsciously and become familiar with them, plus they get to sing their favorite songs.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/voice-on-stage-by-starmaker/id545861112?mt=8






4) Learn that word
Students are able to customize their quizzes and tests according to their needs and levels, it
includes lots of options when it comes to the learning process like video, audio and tons of other
options for the students convenience, the motto of the website is all about you


5) Rock n Learn
Amazing website not only to learn English language but also other languages like French,
Spanish and many more, plus other subjects like math and science, their learning method
basically is turning the educational material into modern pop music, which is cool and
entertaining. http://rocknlearn.com







Literature Review

Literature Review
. 1) Learning Vocabulary Through Music by Tene Carter
It includes the concept of teaching vocabulary through music research and lesson ideas in
a simple and straight to the point slideshow. Carter, T. (2007,June 26). Learning
Vocabulary Through Music [SlideShare]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/
Tenec02/learning-vocabulary-through-music
. 2) Mitchel Resnick / MIT Media Laboratory
It does not exactly refers to vocabulary and music but it talks about the same concept of
my project which is including the fun element in the learning process. Resnick, M.
(2004). Edutainment? No thanks. I prefer playful learning. Retrieved from http://
web.media.mit.edu/%7Emres/papers/edutainment.pdf

. 3) Xiangming li, Tsinghua University (Graduate School at Shenzhen, China)
A study examined the relative effectiveness of varying the use of songs (lyrics and music)
on vocabulary acquisition, language usage, and meaning for adult ESL students in the
Peoples Republic of China. Li, X. (2009). Effectiveness of Music on Vocabulary
Acquisition, Language Usage, and Meaning for Mainland Chinese ESL Learners.
Retrieved from http://krpb.pbworks.com/f/music-esl.pdf

. 4) Adam Simpson's blog
Four great reasons to use songs in language teaching/Clear ideas about how songs are
important in language acquisition Simpson, A. (2013, August 4). Four great reasons to
use songs in language teaching [Adam Simpsons Blog]. Retrieved from http://
www.teachthemenglish.com/2013/08/4-great-reasons-to-use-songs-in-language-teaching/
. 5) The Use of Music for Learning Languages
The Use of Music for Learning Languages:
A Review of the Literature
Jon Weatherford Stales
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
A research study about how the music and the language should be studied together.
Stansell, J. (2005). The Use of Music for Learning Languages: A Review of the
Literature. Retrieved from http://mste.illinois.edu/courses/ci407su02/students/stansell/
Literature%20Review%201.htm





Concept Brief
Overview:
Learning English language vocabularies is the worst nightmare for elementary kids, especially if
English was their second language. Arab kids do face great issues when it comes to learning and
memorizing how these words are used or what do they mean, and it is also difficult since the
English curriculum is fighting alone against all the other Arabic spoken and written curriculums,
and we cannot forget that they are Arab countries, where people usually speak only ARABIC, and
students barely practice English for approximately 30 minutes per a day, which is not enough!
So, how about creating an I-Pad game (since every kid nowadays own one) that emphasis the
learning acquisition adding the flavor spray of being a musician, where students can actually sing
and record and acquire tons of vocabularies at the same time !

Goal:
The goal of this project is to add the Fun and Interaction elements into the learning process
of English vocabularies.

Target audience:
Arab students are the number one targeted audience for this project (elementary students 5-10
graders)



Concept:
Since the software is going to be designed for I-Pads (and for I-Phones as well) the design has to
be attractive and funky enough in order to compete with the numerous applications in I-Tunes
and also to catch the attention of the targeted teenage students. The main user interface will
represent the guitar (teenagers coolest instrument) and it will contain only four buttons on the
guitar strings listen, sing, record and revise. The first glimpse of the interface will sound much
like a karaoke game, however, when students start using it and enjoying the experience they will
discover that it is an educational game meant to teach them vocabularies!
Theoretical rationale:
.ARCS Model of Motivational Design It is an integrated design model that includes individuals'
motivational elements into the instruction in order to stimulate students' engaging in the learning
process. Attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction are the sequential steps to the model.
.Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning a theory of how people learn from words and
pictures, based on the idea that people possess separate channels for processing verbal and visual
material (dual-channels assumption), each channel can process only a small amount of material
at a time (limited-capacity assumption), and meaningful learning involves engaging in
appropriate cognitive processing during learning (active-processing assumption).
Technology rationale:
.High quality Voice recognition is the main technology for this application since it is an
educational-musical and players have to sing and record their voices in order to successfully pass
the phase. In addition, players have the opportunity to share their recordings with their different
social media, therefore a fine quality recordings are vital to enrich the users experience.

.Stylus tracker will encourage players to write with their own unique handwriting, it adds up a
personal flavor to the whole process and can be called a mini writing exercise in a non-class
environment and who knows it can be the first step of enjoying learning English language
vocabularies which is what this product is all about.

User Experience:

1.Listen: when students click the listen button, 24 songs will appear organized vertically from
lower to higher levels, and the higher levels will be temporarily locked until the student are able
to unlock the first introductory levels. The Listen represents a full length song with lyrics passing
along the song, and the important vocabularies in the song will be highlighted and bold, so the
students can visually remember them.

2.Sing: after being familiar with the song, students can click the sing button and start singing
along the singer (using a microphone) and try to imitate the pronunciation of the highlighted
words and memorize them. Here, students are giving the option either to record their voices or
not, its strictly optional!

3.Record: in this phase students are asked to sing the song without the vocals, of course with the
lyrics appearing on the screen and in order to earn as many points as possible they should be able
to sing properly and on the pitch(the user interface will be similar to the voice app)

4.Revise: Finally, students are giving a notepad and are asked to write as many words as possible
from which they have learned from the song and, the main focus is on the highlighted words(a
stylus can be used)
Requirements List

Installing the application

.Apple ID
.I-Tunes
.Students with an iPad or iPhone can download this app

Login/Profile

.Students will sign up using their email.
.If teachers are using this app for learning purposes, they should sign up their students under the
educators umbrella (as teachers are able to create an account and give students the code to
access and then each student can create his/her own profile, in order to track their progress).
.Students profile will include the name, age, school, a profile pic (optional) and all the levels they
have unlocked, and a pie chart with the percentage of progress.
.Students can share their profile with their family and friends using other social media buttons /
Facebook, twitter, Instagram etc.

User interface & Usability
.A Red guitar in the centre of the home page and four buttons on top of it ( Listen, Sing, Record,
Revise ), The home page would not contain many complicated buttons and instructions, by
keeping it simple and clear just four main buttons.
.When any button is clicked a list of 24 levels will appear vertically sequenced.
.Students have to unlock the levels after they successfully pass the first easy levels.
.After you pass any phase a next button will lead you to the following page (e.g if the student
succeeded the listen phase he/she can click next to go to the sing phase without the need of
going back to home page).
.Students can quit at any time during the game by pressing the quit button on the bottom of the
page, or may save their progress and resume at any preferred time later.
.When students are done with a level they have to press submit, which allows the instructor to
see their results and evaluate their progress.

.In the revise phase students have to write the words in a notepad (as mentioned in the brief) a
stylus can be used for the students convenience and in order to feel comfortable writing the
words in their own hand writing and to also increase the amount of the fun element.





*Sharing

By students sharing their progress they can actually get instant feedback from their social
community people, peers, friends and family.
.Positive feedback will make students happy about what they have accomplished so far and also
avoid falling into the same mistakes (if any) in the higher levels.
.On the other hand, negative feedback , for example saying that your voice is hideous or
whatever can be a little depressing for students, which is completely different from the main goal
of this application that is to learn vocabularies not a singing competition, however, I think that
negative feedback can result on a motivation for a better performance in the future.

Context Scenario

Saeed is 12 years old and an only child of a wealthy family and to mention that he is super
spoiled, he never heard his parents say NO to any of his wishes, any thing he dreams of
simply come true. His worst nightmare in general is attending school, he just don't like to wake
up early in the morning and carry his heavy bag and walk all the way to school, he prefers to
sleep and wake up in the time he finds perfect, and enjoying his quality time with his iPad,
iPhone or PS4 listening to his favorite songs or playing call of duty online with one of his
friends. Since Saeed is an Arab kid he have an average level in all of his school subjects because
they were in Arabic, but the big issue lies in his English language class (which all Arabic schools
do teach) he just cant do it.

He always wonder that he owns everything he ever wanted but only being good at English
vocabularies is the only missing thing that he couldnt achieve! Besides, he just dont want to
make an effort and study hard to overcome his problem. He repeats daily to himself I have
everything I want, why should I bother myself learning those stupid Vocabularies anyway? Im
an Arab after all, Im not going to speak English language here. When he repeats these random
thoughts from once in a while he have this temporary amnesia as he feels comfortable and just
forget his point of weakness, however, when he starts using his iPad or surfing the net he wishes
that he paid little attention to his teacher.

He always downloads the Arabic version for any softwares and applications, but when an Arabic
version is not available he asks his parents to help him at first specially with the guides and
instructions until he gets familiar and memorize the order and shapes of the buttons without
knowing their actual meanings. Also, when he plays online with any of the international players (
of course English is the international language ) he just cant communicate with any one who
speaks English, Although he kind of understand what they are saying but he just cant find the
appropriate words that express his thoughts and ideas, so he just always sticks with the Arab
online friends, which was frustrating for him since he loves making friendships and get to know
people from all over the world.



Saeeds parents tried to enroll him into many private lessons with long experienced instructors,
but he just didn't enjoy the traditional methods of learning. Therefore, his parents thought of
another way to make him learn and enjoy simultaneously, so they surfed the web to find other
supplementary applications that could fit well with his needs, he started to liking some of the
educational apps at first but he turns to quit really fast after one or two mistakes that he make. On
the other hand, They noticed Saeeds passion for music and video games as well, his two favorite
I-Pad and PS4 apps and games are The Voice: On Stage by StarMaker, Sing karaoke by Smule
and Call of Duty, he is addicted to those and can spend all day long just playing them, his parents
wished that he could spend those long hours on something educational and rewarding.

His parents would be more than happy if they can find an application or a game that combines
the fun element like music and English vocabularies to fulfill their sonss points of weaknesses,
why learning should be dull ? why cant we enjoy the acquisition of learning and teach the
upcoming generation to start earning great memories at school instead of having nightmares?!!
and for sure we are in a century that enables us to do everything and anything we want to!







Logic Flow Chart




Wireframes


Prototype & Testing Plan

My most critical risks of not meeting my social impact and educational goals for my
project:

1. Misunderstanding the concept behind the product as a musical yet educational tool
2. The Middle Eastern countries reaction (as preserved communities) towards the application,
and I almost can hear people asking how music can teach kids ?
3. How ready are teacherss to use this application as a supplementary tool inside or outside
their classrooms?
4. Students not getting enough support from their parents to keep on the good work !
psychologically getting complements on their recordings from friends and family student
will be even motivated to reach high scores and learning tons of vocabularies

Guiding research questions :

1. Are you able to memorize more vocabularies through music ?
2. Is it distracting for you to sing and pay attention at the words at the same time ? why?
3. Is it stressful to play while realizing that your instructor is tracking your progress? why?
4. What are some of the features you would like them to be added to the application ?
5. Do you find sharing your results and recordings useful ?

Description of the Research Plan:

.Conducting online survey using SurveyMonkey, sending the survey via email.

. Participants: Students 5-10th graders and English Language teachers
. 5 Students (with the help of a mature) + 5 teachers = 10 participants in total

. The online survey may not result in the most reliable findings when it comes to hands on user
testing, however, since this application is designed mainly for Arab students it is almost
impossible to fly to one of the Arabian countries and conduct several user testing method such
as, think aloud protocols, video recording or one on one interviews, although these methods are
time and money consuming but they can really help in the development of the topic being
studied.












SurveyMonkey Questions












English Teachers Survey Questions
Did you like the concept of
the product?
Yes No ? Explain
From a teachers perspective
do you think this application
can be a great tool for
students to start memorizing
many vocabularies?why?
Explain
What are the pros and cons? Answer
What features from your
educational point of view
like them to be added to
enhance the product quality?
Answer
Did you like the idea of
tracking your students
progression ?
Yes No ? Explain
Do you think you can start
using this application once
released for your students ?
Yes No ? Explain
Did nd any troubles
navigating the application?
Yes No
Any comments on the
products accessibility for
your students benets ?
Answer












Students Survey Questions

Did you like using this
application ?
Yes No / Explain
From this session did you
learn any new words ? count
them
Answer
What are the things you hated
the most ?
Answer
What are the things you loved
the most ?
Answer
Would you like your teacher to
use this application during
class or as a homework ?
Yes No / Explain
Do you feel comfortable to use
this application while your
teacher tracks your progress ?
Yes No / Explain
Would you share your high
scores or recordings with your
friends and family?
Yes No / Explain
Do you think this would be
one of your top favorite I-Pad
applications ?
Yes No / Explain
Findings Screenshots









Survey Interpretations

60 percent of the teachers liked the concept of the product which is something really
promising and 100 percent liked the idea of tracking the students progress, and sounded
a new cool idea because there are not many educational iPad products are been used in
the learning acquisition in Middle Eastern countries. when it comes to the things I would
like to change or enhance in my design is adding a word dictionary I really think it is
important to add this feature since it is a vocabulary application and also maybe pick
songs that have curriculum related words, which i think it makes sense if I want the
teachers to use it inside the classrooms it has to be something relevant to what they are
teaching.

Although most of the teachers in the survey appeared pretty much interested in the
product however there are obvious concerns of the possibility actually applying the
product at schools and how the Ministry of Education can accept such a concept to be
added as supplement inside public schools.