ESL Greetings | Case Study

Overview

This eLearning course was designed for advanced-beginner English speakers so that they can improve their conversational English. This is the first in a series of language courses that help the learner develop fluency to sound like a native speaker. This course is based on greetings. The objective is to have the student become familiar with the various ways that people greet each other.

Audience:

ESL language learners, especially those who plan to travel abroad.

Responsibilities:

Project management, visual design, eLearning development and storyboarding, voiceovers, and scriptwriting

Tools Used:

Articulate Storyline 360, Google Docs, Vyond, Figma, and Audacity

The Problem

Beginner English language learners have trouble communicating in English. They take a lot of time thinking about what to say and how to say it. They lack confidence and want to improve their understanding of English as well as their ability to sound like a native speaker. Oftentimes, books and formal educational institutions focus on grammar and writing. These methods are very academic and leave little room for actually speaking in English. This means that the learners can feel shy or even embarrassed when it comes to speaking to natives and can leave them confused when they listen to natives who don’t use this standard academic language in their daily lives.

The Solution

After careful consideration, I decided to use my expertise as a SME to come up with an eLearning solution to this issue as I have years of working in the ESL space. Because this problem was something I was passionate about, I sought to create a course that would be engaging and fun to experience.

The final course includes a few short videos to explain the material as I know that my learners have limited knowledge of the subject area, so first and foremost, I need to teach them some key information.

Creating videos makes this knowledge transfer process more engaging, so I opted for micro-learning videos (bearing in mind the learners’ attention spans and their available time to take the course).

These videos were also made with accessibility in mind as I added closed captioning to the experience.

In addition to that, I created scenario-based activities to help the learners actively recall information so that they can use critical and creative thinking to problem-solve solutions. The activities are great visual aids. They showcase the various situations in which greetings can be used.

Finally, I created a quiz-like scenario as a summative assessment of the various ways that people could greet each other. This was to keep in theme with the real-world situations learners may encounter.

The Process

To learn more about my ID process you can view this page.

The first step in my design process for this project was to define the problem. To start, I conducted a needs analysis. I went through a problem-solving brainstorming session. I came up with performance tasks/behaviours that the learner could do to speak more fluently. I then created an action map.

This part of the process also involved me coming up with learning objectives and outcomes. I used Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction as well as the Successive Approximation Model 1 to structure, organise and create the project’s content. I also planned the evaluation process so that I could ensure the practice activities and evaluations were aligned. I then created a project plan, project timeline and design document to help me stay organised and finish my project in a timely manner.

After this, I came up with the branching structure and the different greeting scenarios and text needed for the project. I laid them out in a storyboard. Then I kept ideating on the script and sorted through my ideas to get the key text I could use. I followed this by creating the scripts for the rest of the project’s content. After this, I used the same iteration approach as before.

Following this, I recorded all the female audio for the course. I outsourced the male audio as well. Once all the audio was recorded, I used Audacity to clean up the background noise and any other unwanted sounds. I also used Audacity to level out the volume of all audio in the project.

Then I moved on to creating the visual designs and animations.

I first collected royalty-free sounds, videos and images from Pexels and Pixabay.

For the cover page, overview/objectives page and student form, I played around with several designs, keeping in mind fundamental visual design principles. The colours used were from the company’s logo and through played around with a colour wheel until I found what worked.

For the micro-videos, I first inserted the appropriate audio into Articulate 360, then I overlaid images to match what the audio was saying.

For character animations, the tool I used was Vyond. I played around with Animaker too but found that Vyond worked better for this particular project.

I started by creating the first scenario video as well its feedback, and correct and incorrect choices (which are also videos). I synced the audio and added background sound effects. I ensured that the design matched the script as closely as possible.

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After that, I kept iterating until I was happy with the look and feel.

I then created the other scenarios and feedback videos using the same process.

I also added an animated mentor to the project to help the learner understand and access relevant information.

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After all the videos were created in Vyond, I exported and organised them into different slides and layers inside of Articulate 360. I prototyped the first scenario by connecting its feedback, and correct and incorrect videos to a question slide. When that was completed, I iterated on the design a few times before connecting the other scenarios and the summative quiz videos in the same way.

I then performed several tests to make sure that the entire project was working as intended. I added and fixed buttons and added closed-captioning and audio.

Finally, I inserted XAPI to track the learners’ interactions and progress. I also used JavaScript to enhance the functionality of the course.

Takeaways

I found this project to be quite interesting. I enjoyed creating interactive content and liked how challenging the programming of this project was at times. I had a few bumps creating some complex triggers because I always like to challenge myself with a new advanced task so that I can improve my programming skills.

I had a lot of fun creating the different scenarios and especially recording all of the female audio. The dialects were especially a fun opportunity for me to use my performing arts skills, and I love that it was challenging as well as I had to be consistent and stay in character when recording all of the different voices.

In conclusion, I loved working on this project, and I look forward to working on similar projects in the future.

Results

After a month, I could see that the learners had a good understanding of the course. The results from the quiz and XAPI analytics showed me that the course was practical and easy to comprehend. Learners taking the course told me that they found it entertaining and asked to be signed up to the waiting list when the full course becomes available.