Escape Room as a Gamification Proposal for Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language

Abstract

An escape room is a gamification technique that consists of confronting a group of students with an imaginary confinement situation. During this educational session, students must work as a team and use their reasoning, knowledge, and skills to solve puzzles and challenges related to the curriculum contents in a limited time. This study examines the impact of an escape room on the learning, motivation, classroom climate, behavior, and general satisfaction of second-year students, enrolled at the West University of Timişoara, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Spanish language specialization. In carrying out this experiment, quantitative and qualitative techniques were used and the results showed a significant improvement in classroom participation, flow, sense of well-being, autonomy, and loss of track of time and supported the conclusion that the use of the escape room is fun and motivating for students and facilitates the acquisition of Spanish as a foreign language.