Bilingual learning games for youth, a tool for lifelong skills and social development

August 15, 2024

During a recent VIVACE mission to Vietnam, we had the chance to pilot our learning games in a home-based after-school program in Hanoi. Managed by a woman who has a full-time job in the cultural sector, the program is offered as an after-school solution for parents, with homework help, social activities and a small, healthy meal.

Our game session was a success, and we found that the home-based after-school setting offered both a personalized and flexible approach to learning, combining informal academic support with creative and recreational activities and socialization in a comfortable environment.

As detailed elsewhere on this site, we believe that face-to-face experiences are more important than ever, particularly in the educational setting. With the ever-increasing dependence on mobile phones and screen-time learning applications, face-to-face games in particular allow students to strengthen social relations and emotional intelligence, while encouraging co-teaching and hence reducing the stress and time constraints placed upon teachers.

Games organized as a complement or even replacement to homework can be even more transformational. Smaller groups allow for more individualized attention, and allowing students to harness their natural love of gamification can help provide a more engaging learning environment than traditional tutoring or lecture-style learning. Gamified homework and assignments also relieve the stress and constraints on parents, who may already be time-pressed managing other work and family obligations. Rather than creating an overly scheduled and strict timeline of after-school activities, gamified homework sessions also provide part-time or occasional after-school care in a secure, familiar setting.

The students we worked with in Hanoi are mostly coming from the local public schools. They follow a rigorous program, and use the after-school home program as a way to reinforce and improve comprehension, while also providing a fun environment to connect with new classmates.

Having now had the chance to pilot our games in Europe, the United States, Sierra Leone, Morocco, Ghana, India and Vietnam, we are now focusing on how learning games can also be used as tools to create social ties and sharing of information and skills between students in different schools and social groups.

For example, students in the Delhi public schools are often stronger in Hindi language skills, whereas their counterparts in international schools tend to be stronger in English. The same is true of international students in France and Vietnam; while some local language skills are acquired, perfect fluency is often not achieved because the students remain almost exclusively among other English-speakers in a social context.

It’s undeniable that learning languages can be a powerful bridge to building peace and understanding. Language is a fundamental tool for communication. Learning another language helps us overcome barriers that hinder understanding and collaboration, and also allows for greater empathy and appreciation for different ways of life, traditions, and perspectives.

We often look at the benefits of bilingual education from the perspective of the child or the family. There are of course myriad studies that demonstrate how mastery of several languages is tied to improved cognative, academic and social outcomes. Children who master several languages in their youth certainly have a head-start later in life, particularly when involved in international projects, initiatives, and solutions to global challenges.

But how can bilingual education also improve long-term peace and understanding between groups that otherwise have limited social interaction? And why are the effects particularly powerful in the youth-to-youth co-teaching / co-learning context?

Multilingualism promotes inclusivity by acknowledging and valuing linguistic diversity. Integrating this at a young age not only helps create understanding between groups of different social spheres, but builds the foundation for long-term interactions, friendships and relationships that can help create more welcoming and equitable societies across a generation.

Could learning games be the solution for language exchanges and building greater collaboration and socialization potential over the long-term? Our initial feedback says yes.

In contexts in which language is an important driver of social standing, building bilingualism and cross-strata interactions early in life can help lower the risk of conflict or “siloed” societies down the road. The effects are even more powerful from an early age. In addition to creating social and emotional bonds, children teaching children languages has the added benefit of building other social skills, such as patience, maturity and confidence, making it more likely that strong ties will remain between different groups across generations.

CPM