ECGBL submission
Learners practice spoken German. First, the learner selects a video that they are interested in from a selection of curated videos recorded by native German speakers on YouTube. Then, they practice the vocabulary needed to understand a small snippet of the video with digital spaced-repetition based flashcards. After that, they watch the video snippet and rate how well they understood it. This is repeated in a gamified environment until the content of the video is absorbed.
The learner acquires German as a foreign language through listening. In accordance with the Comprehensible Input framework, this will not only aid listening skills, but also speaking skills. Due to the use of flashcards (& the advantage of the testing effect and spaced repetition), learners at any level can utilize immersion learning. Since the app avoids dry grammar lessons and teaches only vocabulary needed to understand content that the learner is interested in, learning motivation is enhanced.
The app is unique in connecting flashcard-based spaced repetition learning with immersion learning/comprehensible input, achieving a balance of a laid-back, interest-guided learning experience and an optimized adaptive learning environment. It's also free, open source and based on learning material already available publicly (YouTube videos), thus it is sustainable and usable in a wide range of contexts, e.g. as a supplement for the German classroom or in self-guided refugee education.