Innovation in Language Learning

This Business English course in entrepreneurship goes beyond communicative language instruction and offers a course designed to introduce students to innovative thinking, entrepreneurship and sustainable business practices. About 120 students in their first year are enrolled as part of the required foreign language module in Business Management (B.Sc.). Each week students learn new concepts and terminology in sustainable business practices while applying the material in a simulation task-based course using English as a lingua franca. It prepares students to work in an international context while offering online components for autonomous learning. This 12-14 week course is designed in a student-centered and blended learning format with a flipped classroom approach. Through a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research the “work&study project” will offer additional online materials by developing new educational apps to enhance autonomous language learning and making the app content available under the Creative Commons license. The research project focuses on offering new learning environments to enhance the opportunities for non-traditional students enrolled at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. This paper will focus on the development of the first apps and results of the first testing phase. It shows how game-based learning and elements of gamification were added for educational purposes to enhance teaching and learning processes that were already well established.

Keywords: Learning App, Gamification, Business English, Blended Learning;