Implementing digital game-enhanced pedagogy: Supportive and impeding language awareness and discourse participation phenomena

Abstract

This descriptive study investigated the implementation of student-selected, entertainment-purposed digital games for foreign language teaching and learning. During a 15-week semester, 16 Korean EFL students enrolled in an introductory educational technology course played online games, visited gaming sites, and completed instructional tasks. Conceptualizing games as social practices and drawing from the bridging activities framework (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008), instructional tasks were designed to enhance language awareness and to present possibilities for socialization into gaming discourses. The study investigated the ways that the designed pedagogy supported or impeded language awareness and gaming discourse participation. The study found that the students exhibited language awareness in many ways, but that there were missed opportunities in developing student understandings of language as a social medium. Additionally, six students (38%) directly participated in gaming spaces, and some of them took on more central roles in gaming practices over time. Other students, however, did not attempt to directly participate in gaming sites or were not successful in their attempts. These findings are discussed in regard to pedagogical design, including game selection and supporting learner analyses of gaming discourses, as well as avenues for future research examining socialization in classrooms and gaming spaces.

Towards the Sustainable Development of Digital Educational Games for Primary School Students in China

“…Compared with prior research findings of the positive impact of digital games-based learning on students' learning outcomes such as language awareness [37,38], knowledge acquisition [39] and metacognition [40], the experimental results reveal that though students from the EC and the CC both made progress, more significant improvement was found in the EC. Such results add to existing body of knowledge about the effectiveness of digital educational games learning approach, in particular, its efficacy in the vocabulary acquisition of primary school students in China.…”

A Systematic Review of Second Language Learning:Trends and Suggestions

“…Popular applications of YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and Google Classroom made available on computers are used in the digital teaching and learning process of students despite the absence of teachers; the frequency of utilising these applications anytime and anywhere will help improve language acquisition (Bahari, 2020; Rustam & Mengke, 2020; Chiou, at el., 2019; Lee, 2019). Computer-assisted learning, including online and offline games, has helped significantly in amplifying the learning curiosity (Mcneil, 2019;Blume, 2019;Wingate, 2016).…”

“…The articles under review also evoke the importance of learning-based games being given primary priority corresponding with the technology-dependent education. The interest of students is always heightened and sustainably maintained as they gradually learn a second language (Mcneil, 2019;Blume, 2019;Wingate, 2016). In assisting learning new vocabularies, word games challenge the ability of students toseek meanings of words initiated by teachers (Mcneil;.…”

Using Digital Games for Enhancing EFL Grammar and Vocabulary in Higher Education

“…A study conducted by [41] analyzed the implementation of student-selected, entertainment-purposed digital games for foreign language teaching, and learning. A total of 16 EFL Korean students who were part of an educational technology course were involved in this study during a 15-week semester.…”