Basha Buddy: A Gamified Sinhala-to-English Learning Platform for Early Learners

Abstract

Basha Buddy is a gamified mobile application designed to improve English language learning for Sinhala-speaking students. Recognising the challenges faced by young learners in multilingual environments such as Sri Lanka, the app combines interactive learning with playful engagement. It offers level-based tasks, voice prompts in Sinhala and English and real- time progress monitoring to maintain motivation and encourage learning. To allow students to practice writing directly on the screen, a custom Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) based on the LeNet architecture has been implemented to recognize handwritten English capital letters. Firebase was used for cloud storage and authentication, FastAPI for back-end services and model inference, and Flutter for the mobile front-end of the application. Gamification features like leaderboards, scoring systems, and rewards are meant to keep students interested, and a special admin panel lets teachers assign tasks, track progress, and control content. By integrating handwriting recognition, language support and game-based learning mechanisms, Basha Buddy offers a novel, locally relevant solution that promotes active language learning in a child-friendly and technologically advanced way. The project not only fulfils pedagogical goals, but also represents an innovative model for combining artificial intelligence with interactive learning tools in primary education.