Using Video Games for Learning: Developing a Metalanguage for Digital Play

Abstract

With technological advancement, digital play is increasingly popular as digital games appeal to all ages but are particularly attractive to youths and children. It is useful to develop a deeper understanding of digital play and to explore ways in which caregivers can guide young people in their play to recognize and develop different types of learning. This article attempts to address these issues through proposing a metalanguage for digital play. The theoretical orientation adopted in this article is that of social semiotics and critical multiliteracies. Our focus is on harnessing the affordances of digital play for learning by systematizing them into a metalanguage based on social semiotic theory that models the meaning potential of semiotic resources into the representation, engagement, and organization functions. From the metalanguage, the pedagogical implications or a set of principles of using digital play for learning in the classroom context are discussed.

Teachers’ framing and dialogic facilitation of Minecraft in the L1 classroom

“…Digital games represent multimodal texts designed to offer specific affordances in terms of game aesthetics, narrative structures, and game mechanics that allow players to navigate and interact with the game world (Apperley & Beavis, 2013;Burn, 2007;Toh & Lim, 2020). At the same time, it is problematic to assume that game designs, themselves, have direct effects on pedagogy and learning, as the potentials of games need to be facilitated and realised in educational practice (Clark et al, 2016).…”

“…The horizontal dimension in the model refers to teachers' facilitation of game challenges between focusing on the game as design (text) and the game as social action. As mentioned, digital games might offer numerous affordances for interaction in terms of game mechanics or game narratives (Toh & Lim, 2020). Seen from a literacy perspective, the multimodal design features of digital games can be conceptualised and understood as textual aspects that relate to students' existing knowledge of games, as well as broader game discourses and meaning making (Beavis & Apperley, 2013;Burn, 2007).…”

“I expect boredom”: Students' experiences and expectations of multiliteracies learning

“…While the syllabus has determined the learning goals and has described the desired learning outcomes, teachers are encouraged to teach based on the academic profiles and needs of their students. Approaches to multiliteracies pedagogies in Singapore include designing opportunities for the cultivation of a semiotic awareness in students (Towndrow et al, 2009; Ho, 2010), the development of a metalanguage for specific multimodal texts (Lim and Tan, 2017, 2018; Liang and Lim, 2020; Toh and Lim, 2020) and frameworks for the assessment of multiliteracies (Towndrow et al, 2013; Chan et al, 2017). In light of the range of approaches and instructional strategies available, it is not uncommon to observe varying classroom practices in the teaching of multiliteracies based on the beliefs, preferences and competencies of teachers (Lim et al, 2020).…”

How to teach digital reading?

“…When new text-types such as picture books (Miller & Watts, 2011) and transmedia narratives (Djonov, Tseng & Lim, forthcoming) on e-readers as well as digital games (Toh & Lim, 2020) are introduced, the previous lesson will be reviewed to add new features relevant to the specific genre. In this way, Liang and Lim (2020) argue that students may progress with the analysis and evaluation of more digital texts to create their own multimodal digital representations.…”