The Erasmus + Language Magician project is a videogame with a grip on children that can also be useful to teachers in evaluating the progress students make in learning foreign languages. The project, which was joined by the Schooling Office of the Italian Consulate in London since the beginning of 2015 and by the Foreign Ministry in 2018 through a financial contribution, has now become an instrument available online free of charge and accessible to all schools and teachers.
At the address https://www.thelanguagemagician.net/about-the-project/ you can use the game for two levels of learning: one for children between 7 and 10 who have already dedicated approximately 100 hours to studying the foreign language of choice (English, French, Spanish, German and Italian for foreigners) and another for older students of up to 12 years of age who have dedicated approximately 200 hours to studying the foreign language.
For 35 minutes, the student becomes the Language Magician whose task consists in “freeing his animal friends imprisoned by the terrible Winivil in his inaccessible tower”.
By periodically repeating the game, teachers can evaluate the progress of their young students thanks to the instantaneous creation of a diagram showing their performance.
Anna Cicogna, a researcher at the Perugia University for Foreigners, has followed the project since the outset and gave a tutorial to guide teachers through the platform registration and utilization process at http://www.thelanguagemagician.net/video-tutorial-backend-e-gioco_def/.
In addition to the University of Perugia, the other contributors to finetuning the videogame were the Siena University for Foreigners, as well as other British, Spanish and German Universities.
