The Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística participates in the development of an app to improve the students’ ability to read academic English (StratApp)

23/02/2018

Dr Hortènsia Curell, from the Departament de Filologia Anglesa i de Germanística, coordinates the UAB team that is part of a consortium, led by the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, which is currently developing a game-based app to improve the ability of university students to read academic English. The other members of the consortium are the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour from France, the Wyższa Szkoła Lingwistyczna in Częstochowa from Poland, the Consorci de Serveis Universitaris de Catalunya and Amistad IT company from Poland.

The game-based application will provide thematic scenarios that will act as a plot thread, which will be divided into mini-games or missions, each one designed at improving a specific reading skill. Completion of a certain number of missions or especially hard levels will be rewarded with collectable badges. When all the missions of a given level are cleared, new scenarios can be unlocked. Scenarios are organized by level, following the CEFR, starting with a B1 level. Completing all scenarios will imply a B2 reading academic competence.

Initially, the app will be delivered to students of Education in the 3 countries involved in the project, Spain, Poland and France. Later, the app aims to attract users from other European countries.

Parallel to the design of the app, a user’s manual is being compiled aimed at teachers of English for Specific Purposes. It will contain instructions on how to create texts and exercises from various disciplines to be included in the app.

The project is due to finalize in 2019, but after the end of the EU funding, the app will be openly available to university students, with the aim to help them improve their English reading skills while they have fun playing a game.

 http://stratapp.eu