Entertainment Games for Teaching English as a Second Language: Characteristics and Potential

This article explores the use of entertainment games for teaching English as a second language. It is a narrative literature review of theories of motivation and learning. To facilitate the choice of didactic resources to be used in the English classroom by teachers, this study brings to light the characteristics relevant to teaching that can be found in games, associated with different genres. In this sense, 14 researches involving digital games of entertainment were analyzed, using as basis Gardner’s theories of motivation in the teaching, games and the active learner of Gee, zone of proximal development of Vygotsky, tangential learning model of Portnow and Brown, model of the monitor, Krashen’s input hypothesis, Schumann’s acculturation model, and the hypothesis of the interaction proposed by several authors such as Gass and Larsen-Freeman and Long. The results obtained were the definition of the relevant characteristics to teaching and learning in games and the identification of the genres associated to these characteristics. The discussion used the following characteristics found in the analyzed texts: motivation, classroom interaction, social interaction in the game, tangential learning, grades, complementary material, vocabulary, repetitive written content, big written content, need for text interpretation, audio and text

Second language (L2) gains through digital game-based language learning (DGBLL): A meta-analysis

Studies on digital game-based language learning (DGBLL) have increased in numbers, creating a pool of studies that can be meta-analyzed to measure the overall effect of digital gaming on second language (L2) development. The current meta-analysis targets digital games that were available to the public at the time of data collection, January of 2020, aggregating their effects on L2 development overall and across a number of moderator variables. These moderator variables include the game developers’ intended purpose of the game (educational or entertainment), outcome measures (e.g., vocabulary, overall proficiency), and several game design features such as the type of player interaction (single player, multiplayer, massively multiplayer online), among others. Results indicate that DGBLL has had a small to medium positive effect (Cohen’s dweighted = 0.50) for between-groups designs and a medium effect (dweighted = 0.95) for within-group designs. Games designed for entertainment were found to be more effective than those designed for L2 education, although there is some overlap in the 95% confidence intervals of the two groups. The overall findings and those from additional moderator analyses are discussed in light of previous DGBLL findings while offering direction for future research and recommendations for improving the methodological rigor and transparency in DGBLL research

ENHANCING EFL ADOLESCENT LEARNERS’ VOCABULARY ACQUISITION VIA ONLINE SINGLE PLAYER ROLE-PLAY GAMES

With the booming of digital gaming industry, numerous researchers have placed the focus on the use of online role-play games in language learning. However, the research focus of most prior studies was on the commercially-driven “massive multiplayer online role-play games” in the afterschool settings. The use of online single-player role-play games in the class was less studied. The present study hereby investigated sixty-five eighth graders’ use of one online single-player RPG called OzHigh in vocabulary learning. The participants came from three classes in one public junior high school in central Taiwan. By means of a single group design, the participants underwent the game treatment, pre-test, post-test, delayed post-test, questionnaire, and the semi-structured interview. The results showed that the participants had significant improvement on their vocabulary performance. They also responded positively to their role-play game learning experience. Nevertheless, that did not mean that they held negative attitudes toward the traditional face-to-face method of vocabulary instruction. Instead, they confirmed the positive effects of both instructional methods and were aware of the varied learning purposes of these two methods. It is hoped that the findings of this study shed light on language teachers in their efforts to enhance their students’ vocabulary learning

Using Authentic Materials in a Spanish Class: Impact on Students\u27

A Spanish classroom offers the opportunity to use authentic materials as teaching resources. Materials such as songs, movies, poems, and newspapers, just to mention a few, may be used. These materials, if chosen carefully, may enrich students\u27 cultural knowledge, vocabulary, reading and writing skills, amongst others. On the other hand, non-authentic materials such as textbooks with audios and written pieces can be used as well. This study attempted to determine if there was any impact on using authentic materials on students\u27 cultural knowledge and vocabulary development. The participants included 19 high school students enrolled in a Spanish class for native speakers. It was the goal that through different means of data collection, the results may contribute to research in this needed field

The impact of the walking dead video game on students' reading comprehension on narrative text

With the development of technology every time, the development of media for learning is also overgrowing. Many new media are popping up especially digital-based media, ranging from images, audio, and video. All of that media has been widely used by teachers to get students excited about what they will learn in class. However, the longer these media feel boring for students, the teachers also have to twist their brains to find new media, one of which is video games. Several studies have looked into the influence of adventure video games on learning English; however, few studies have looked into the effect of adventure games on learning English. This study aimed to see how video games affected students' reading comprehension of narrative text. The study consisted of 50 students from SMA Negeri 1 Kebomas Gresik in tenth grade. X-IPS 1 and X-IPS 2 were the class examples. The impact of video games can be reflected in the multiple-choice scores of students. The author used a quantitative procedure and quasi-experimental design as the analysis methodology with a purposive sampling approach. A multiple-choice test was used as the testing tool. The findings in this study explain that video games do not significantly impact students but only increase the motivation of students to learn and entertain students onl