Gamification of complex morphology learning: the case of Turkish

Grammatical information, embedded at the word level, makes the acquisition of morphologically rich languages quite complex as well as the language exercise generation process for teachers. This study introduces a new gamification approach for complex morphology learning and aims to analyze the students’ perceptions towards it. In this approach, the morphology components and their interactions are gradually introduced to the learners within a gamified environment through automatically generated exercises. Although not specific to any language, the approach has been applied to Turkish which is a strong representative of morphologically rich languages. The study was conducted for three weeks with international students in an introductory level Turkish language course via a mobile application developed using finite-state transducer technology to model morphology. Questionnaires, e-journals and semi-structured interviews were employed to examine the perceptions and experiences of the students in terms of perceived efficacy, system usage, engagement, loyalty, perceived enjoyment, attitude, and willingness to recommend. The findings of the study revealed that the students had positive perceptions towards the proposed approach and found it effective for their learning process. The approach is considered to fill an important gap in grammar exercises for learning morphologically rich languages.