Lingopolis is a citybuilding game designed to make vocabulary
learning fun, social and fast.
Motivation
Every teacher knows the blank look that learners get when
faced with vocabulary they do not know - or very often did
know but have forgotten.
Learners struggle, in particular, with:
● irregular spelling and pronunciation
● the sheer volume of words
● the ‘treadmill’ of learning words for tests only to forget
them straight after the test
But, the biggest obstacle learners face is in keeping
motivated for the length of time it takes to overcome all
these challenges.
Lingopolis overcomes this motivation obstacle by:
● turning vocabulary learning into an exciting
web-based game
● teaching 3000+ high frequency headwords broken up
into accessible CEF-based levels with 1000 words each
● accelerating learning by using proven techniques based
on academic research
● powering the learning experience with content from the
language learning experts at Cambridge Dictionaries
Online
The game
In Lingopolis players compete to learn words as fast as they
can and are rewarded with coins to build a city.
The city directly represents the learners’ vocabulary and the
more words they learn, the faster it grows with bigger and
better buildings.
The game also motivates learners to keep practising old
words because If they neglect them their city, just like their
vocabulary, will begin to shrink.
Lingopolis keeps players engaged over the long term by
using features made popular in games like Farmville,
including: social play, appointment mechanics, loss avoidance
and sharing.
1
High frequency words
Lingopolis targets the 3000+ high frequency headwords
that make up 90% of the words students will encounter in
most English texts, web, film and TV content. It includes all
the NGSL1 headwords as well as useful words from other
word lists2 and selected by teachers.
Every headword includes its high frequency senses
(based on Cambridge English Corpus data). This means
that, in total, Lingopolis teaches 1000 words (senses)
per level across fours levels: A1/A2, B1, B2, C1/C2.
Learning high frequency words is the key to unlocking a
wealth of comprehensible input that will build students’
vocabulary and language skills further.3
It also tackles the ‘blank face’ problem, freeing up
valuable class time and empowering students to become
independent vocabulary learners.
Memory algorithm
The pressures of time and student numbers mean that
giving individual attention in class to learners who are
struggling with vocabulary is not always possible.
Lingopolis keeps track of each individual student’s
progress, word by word, and uses a memory algorithm
to make sure they don’t forget old words as they learn
new ones.
It does this by using “spaced repetition” to aid
memorisation4 by prompting students to practise words
at precisely the optimal time to ensure words are
retained in their long-term memory.
Powered by Cambridge Dictionaries
Lingopolis is powered by Cambridge Dictionaries Online
with:
●
translations
●
audio
●
easy-to-understand definitions
●
example sentences
●
CEFR5 levels informed by Cambridge University
Press’ English Vocabulary Profile.
Practice questions have been created using the
Cambridge English Corpus, which contains over 1.5 billion
words of written and spoken English from books, papers,
websites, conversations, TV and radio.
A New General Service List ­ newgeneralservicelist.org/ Neufeld and Eldridge (2009) Common European Lexical Framework 3
Schmitt and Schmitt (2012). A reassessment of frequency and vocabulary size in L2 vocabulary teaching 4
Carpenter et al (2012). Using Spacing to Enhance Diverse Forms of Learning. Review of Recent Research 5
Common European Framework of Reference for Languages 2
Enriched repetition
Lingopolis uses a range of multiple choice and active
recall questions with receptive and productive styles
to progressively “enrich repetition” of each word.
Words are established in short term memory with
flashcards and multiple choice style questions with a
L2→L1 pairs (receptive) followed by L1→L2 pairs
(productive).
Testing effect
Lingopolis’ use of active recall questions engages
the ‘testing effect’ to help learners strengthen
their long term memory of words.
This form of active recall has been shown to be
twice as effective at storing long term memories
than when compared to traditional restudying
alone.9
When learning new words, research shows that the
use of translation pairs is preferred by students and
more effective than English definitions.6 However,
learners who prefer to learn only in English can do so
using the English word and its definition instead.
Themed wordpacks
Lingopolis helps learners by grouping words in
loosely themed wordpacks e.g. a ‘shopping’ or
‘travel’ wordpack.10
Learning new vocabulary is weighted towards
productive use as this has been demonstrated to
outperform receptive learning in promoting
productive knowledge.7
This ensures that learners are not introduced to
words that are likely to interfere with memorisation
if learned at the same time, for example opposites
or lexical sets such as a set of months or a set of
fruits. 11
Long-term memory of words is strengthened with
active recall questions where learners recall words
based on a variety of prompts in English, including:
definitions, picture, clue and cloze sentence.
Learners unlock themed wordpacks as they
progress through the game which provides ongoing
motivation.
By using a range of prompt styles and content
Lingopolis:
● uses depth and levels of processing to
strengthen the encoding of the long-term
memory of words
● exposes learners to words in a variety of
contexts / common collocations
Mnemonics
Soon, learners will be able to create their own
mnemonic clues for words that they are finding
difficult to remember. These clues will then be
replayed to learners each time they get a word
incorrect. The keyword method of mnemonics, which
will be used in Lingopolis, has been shown to be a
highly effective memorisation tool.8
Data driven learning
Lingopolis will be an ongoing learning experiment
providing live data about real learner performance.
The team at Playlingo will use this data to
continually test and evaluate the assumptions
underlying our learning design and inform future
improvements to make learning vocabulary as
motivating and effective as possible.
Playlingo is a London-based startup.
Our team have made award-winning learning
games for the BBC, taught English at the British
Council and love making language learning that’s
fun, social and fast.
Folse (2004). Myths about Teaching and Learning Second Language Vocabulary: What Recent Research Says Zhong (2011). Learning a word: From receptive to productive vocabulary use 8
Nation(2001). Learning Vocabulary in another language
9
Karpicke & Roediger (2003). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning 10
Tinkham (1997). The effects of semantic and thematic clustering on the learning of second language vocabulary 11
Nation (2000). Learning Vocabulary in Lexical Sets: Dangers and Guidelines 6
7