Topic –
Appropriate use of ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’ in English sentences written by Polish high school students.
Research question –
to determine if a computer program, Gil’s Article-Maker, (Gillian, 2012) which uses the Games-Based Learning (GBL) approach combined with a cognitive based approach, scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1978), yields the improvement in the appropriate use of articles in simple, compound, and complex sentence formation skills of 13 to 14-year-old participants.
Objective –
The purposesof the study are to:
develop an effective and motivating e-learning tool to aid Polish learners’ of English to develop their skills in using English articles appropriately.
to evaluate the effectiveness of StoryTec, a web authoring tool, (Mehm et al., 2008) to reduce the complexity of the authoring process for e-learning tools thereby, reducing the high cost associated with the e-learning tool production and to simplify their design process.
to develop an e-learning tool using the Games Based Learning (GBL) approach combined with a cognitive based approach, scaffolding to create a more individualised learning tool
Theoretical framework –
The first rationale for this study is teaching the appropriate use of English articles to Polish speakers has been reported to be a very difficult task as the Polish language expresses these concepts in very different ways to English (Arabski, 1979; Zabor, 2011).
Therefore, as Polish learners of English students find learning the appropriate use of articles difficult, there has been a search to find effective and motivating intervention techniques (Król-Markefka, 2010). However, to date, there have been no major identified studies looking at the use of e-learning tools in this area.
The use of an e-learning tool in this learning area is indicated for a number of reasons. Through using an e-learning tool with the GBL approach, intervention can combine educational goals with the positive features of the adventure game genre such as fascinating story lines, intriguing puzzles, and character interactions (Mehm et al., 2012; Wouters et al., 2011). Thus, the Polish students may find learning the appropriate use of articles more interesting and may retain more information when it is coupled to game play through the e-learning tool.
The use of scaffolding is informed by Vygotsky’s (1978) concept of “zone of proximal development.” Different zones can be constructed in the e-learning tool through the interaction of students with differing abilities and at differing stages in the acquisition process and the e-learning tool (Obikwelu et al., 2012).
The final rationale is to develop a practical process for creating e-learning tools quickly that can be applied to the creation of other e-learning tools. Through creating e-learning tools as a set of simple game-based modules such as “missions”, “mini-games” or “bonus stages”, this will facilitate easily managed design production and allow for sets of adaptation and personalization rules to create scaffolding for the student (Zarraonandia et al., 2012). As part of this process, the Story Tec web authoring tool (Mehm et al., 2008) will be trialed to see how effective it is in creating e-learning tools.

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