26th International Conference on Computers in Education ICCE 2018
Abstract
This study examines patterns of rhyme identification among English Language
Learners (ELLs) towards the development of an educational game, JOLLY, intended to
improve phonemic awareness among school-aged children in the Philippines. Leveraging
on students’ intrinsic interest in Western popular music, we ask students to identify rhyming
words from among the song lyrics. We find that the extent to which an English phoneme is
similar to a Tagalog phoneme determines how likely it is to be identified. From these
findings, we draw implications on how JOLLY’s underlying domain model can be
structured with each song as a learning object and each learning object consisting of an
inventory of phonemes to be mastered. We also recommend the use of open, possibly social,
student models to help learners track their progress and that of their peers