Abstract:

Learning German can be a challenging task for engineering students from the National University of Science and Technology Politehnica Bucharest, because the language comes with some degree of complexity, and it does not belong to their usual field of study. In order to maintain a high motivation throughout the semester one possibility is the inclusion of serious games. The paper analyses the experiences with some of these serious games in order to describe the ones which had the best results regarding the students’ motivation. The serious games used include both online and offline games and have different advantages as well as requirements, which will be described in detail. The online games will also be compared in terms of User Experience Design (UX-Design) based on User Experience Writing (UX-Writing) criteria because of their potential impact on users’ motivation - in this case students’ motivation. The paper will describe a potential successful blend of offline and online serious games with a high potential of enhancing engineering students’ motivation while learning German. The results can be used to enhance teaching German as well as other foreign languages in higher education, especially in the field of engineering.

Keywords:

Education, UX-Writing, Serious Games.