I am a Professor in the English Applied Linguistics program and affiliate faculty with the Ph.D. program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona in Tucson. My research interests lie in the relationship between technology and CALL theory and practice, and focus on technology-enhanced second and foreign language pedagogy and learning, especially with emergent technologies like social media and digital gaming.
Multiliteracies-aligned teaching and learning in digitally-mediated second language teacher education, C. Blume (ed.), 2024
Leveraging the situated and transformative nature of literacies development, a pedagogy of multil... more Leveraging the situated and transformative nature of literacies development, a pedagogy of multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) can offer a useful theoretical framework for teacher education applicable to gameful additional language teaching and learning (GL2TL). Multifarious in nature, gaming literacies entail a variety of cognitive and socio-literacies such as system, play, and design literacies. Intersecting with developing teacher identities, development of these literacies is afforded through social, creative, and reflective practices grounded in situated play and design experiences. Following a review of relevant literature, this chapter reports on a two-week online unit about GL2TL in a graduate computer-assisted language learning (CALL) course I designed and taught at a large, public US-American university. New London Group's Pedagogy of Multiliteracies (1996) provided the framework for the unit. Activities for the students, who were mostly L2 teachers with a few years of teaching experience, situated their gaming experiences and identities, introduced and discussed theoretical concepts, and had them play, reflect on, and imagine designs for gameful L2 learning experiences. Analysis of their work show evidence for the development of gaming literacies and the conditions for eventual transformed practice.
The term digital wilds has come to refer to the non-formal online spaces in and through which add... more The term digital wilds has come to refer to the non-formal online spaces in and through which additional language (L2) learner-users, using a multifarious array of tools, platforms, and services, autonomously navigate personal learning trajectories (Sauro & Zourou, 2019), developing L2 digital literacies-mediated identities needed in life-wide settings. This article examined how three successful, autonomous English L2 learner-users critically and creatively engaged in L2 digital literacy practices, ranging from navigating social media and the Internet to 'reprodusing' (Reinhardt & Thorne, 2019) content on video sharing sites. This article focuses on (1) the development of digital learner autonomy in successful English L2 learners and (2) the entanglement of L2 digital literacy practices, identities, and livelihoods. The analysis shows that agency, competence, and self-efficacy played key roles in autonomy development, which was inextricably intertwined with emergent identities and realized through the practice of digital literacies. The findings shed light on the potential role of language educators in leveraging activity in the digital wilds for formal learning purposes.
The Handbook of Language Learning and Technology (Bloomsbury), R. Hampel & U. Stickler, eds, 2024
This chapter discusses the use of social media in formal contexts as a means for language learner... more This chapter discusses the use of social media in formal contexts as a means for language learners to develop cultural competences by means of critical social media literacies. The chapter first explores definitions of social media, research on their use in L2TL for learning language and culture, and the notion of social media literacy. It then discusses the concept of intercultural competence including critiques of the term and the concept of transculturality as well as how social media have been used for culture learning, arguing that cultural competence is better conceptualized as mono-, inter-, and trans-cultural competences. The third section presents implications for formal L2 pedagogy, focusing first on using social media as the means for culture learning, using the metaphors of windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds (Reinhardt, 2020). The chapter concludes with implications for teaching critical social media literacies through Bridging Activities (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008) and other frameworks (e.g. Dooly & Darvin, 2022) as the means for developing cultural competences.
A short non-fiction essay about Falco, Mozart, and 'bad' music I wrote, entirely unrelated to my ... more A short non-fiction essay about Falco, Mozart, and 'bad' music I wrote, entirely unrelated to my regular research, for a friend's writing competition. It was fun to write something different.
Current Trends on Digital Technologies and Gaming for Teaching and Linguistics, 2023
As the field of gameful L2 (second/foreign/additional language) teaching and learning (GL2TL) gro... more As the field of gameful L2 (second/foreign/additional language) teaching and learning (GL2TL) grows, it needs to focus on both research and teaching practice. The digital game industry has grown massive and global over the past few decades with technological advances, surpassing in profit the film and music industries combined. Within the industry, educational gaming is growing at a record pace -- valued at USD 9.2 billion in 2019, it is projected to reach USD 88.1 billion by 2027, a faster pace than even electric vehicles. (Verified Market Research, 2022). This means that whether or not applied linguists and L2 educators are involved in the development process, increasing numbers of educational games for L2TL will be created and sold to individual learners and schools around the world. If there is a healthy body of research on L2 learning and teaching with games, the industry will recognize the value of working with practitioners of both research and teaching when developing these games. If not, they may develop them without our involvement, leading to more failures than successes.
With the rise of ubiquitous social media, many everyday socio-literacy communication practices ha... more With the rise of ubiquitous social media, many everyday socio-literacy communication practices have become mediatized and, thus, commonplace, habitual, and unexamined. This shift poses new opportunities and challenges to second and foreign language (L2) education and computer-assisted language learning (CALL), as debates on whether digital technology can be integrated into L2 classrooms until it is normalized and no longer visible are moot. Most students now come to L2 learning with a range of dispositions or habitus associated with everyday technology-mediated literacies, influencing their reception of formal L2 learning tasks. The impact of this mediatic turn has already been documented, with learners resisting or rejecting learning activity that does not balance task parameters with the ecological affordances of a particular tool vis-à-vis agency. Retaining learner agency, however, poses a challenge due to formal curricular and assessment demands and the need to develop awareness, which is key to developing abilities to use social media for autonomous L2 learning. In response, I propose a paradigm of "technology as everyday" that recognizes the mediatic turn, contrasting with traditional CALL theoretical paradigms where technology is rarified or exceptional. This paradigm implicates approaches to research that are ecologically grounded in emic perspectives of technology-mediatized language use and a relational pedagogy that develops critical awareness of mediatized language use as socio-literacy practice.
Informed by the other studies of the volume, this chapter argues that online language teacher edu... more Informed by the other studies of the volume, this chapter argues that online language teacher education (OLTE) should make five considerations in reconceptualizing curricula and provides examples of learning activities that address each. First it should acknowledge that online digital language use differs considerably from in-person language equivalents, and second, that technology knowledge includes not only how to teach online but what digital language use is. Third, it should recognize that learners and teachers have modern techno-identities developed not only in their academic but their everyday lives as well. Fourth, it should leverage the power of the Internet to develop translanguacultural awareness and fifth, recognize that social presence is key to socio-collaborative learning, both in-person and online.
This chapter explores the phenomenon of SLA in social, multiplayer digital gaming contexts, for e... more This chapter explores the phenomenon of SLA in social, multiplayer digital gaming contexts, for example, in MMOGs, or massively multiplayer online games. After providing some background and history of multiplayer gaming, we focus on the notion of game interaction and how it can be conceptualized in relation to SLA. We then survey research that has applied the aforementioned variety of SLA frameworks to analysis of multiplayer L2 interaction. Using pedagogical metaphors, we then discuss implications for practice and the design of L2 educational games. We then present and advocate for a design-informed approach and describe seven game mechanics or types – adventure, narrative, open world, role play, socialization, survival, and team cooperative – that might be examined more closely for their SLA potential when played in multiplayer modes. We conclude with a call for more research.
Only defining itself as "Computer-Assisted Language Learning" in the 1980s (Higgins, 1983), the f... more Only defining itself as "Computer-Assisted Language Learning" in the 1980s (Higgins, 1983), the field of CALL is still relatively young, with origins in the post-WWII computer revolution, programmed learning, and applied linguistics. From its beginnings, CALL has built its identity not on a fixed set of foundational technologies, but on its ability to adapt language learning theory, research, and pedagogy to new digital technologies as they emerge and evolve, from HyperCard, command lines, and video laserdiscs in the 1980s to YouTube, smartphones, and virtual reality today. This evolving landscape has been chronicled in the Language Learning & Technology (LLT) Emerging Technologies column ever since the founding of the journal in 1997. The topics of the columns, written by Robert Godwin-Jones (and an occasional guest author), have ranged from dynamic web page creation in 1998 to digital gaming in 2014, thus capturing the emerging identity of the field. In recognition of the 25th anniversary of LLT, this special issue focuses on how CALL technologies have emerged over time, developing interdependent relationships with the epistemologies and purposes of CALL research and practice
In 1958, American physicist William Higinbotham created what is now considered the first video ga... more In 1958, American physicist William Higinbotham created what is now considered the first video game, Tennis for Two. Also in 1958, French sociologist Roger Caillois wrote Les jeux et les hommes (published in English in 1961 as Man, Play and Games), an important treatise on play and games as social activity, a promordial form of culture. Building on Johan Huizinga’s seminal Homo Ludens (1950), Caillois introduced key concepts in game studies such as ludus and paidia, equating roughly to rule-based and free form play, and agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry, and ilinx (vertigo), a quadripartite taxonomy of play forms clearly influenced by the traditional four temperaments of Western psychology. Although Caillois’ perspective on digital gameplay is unknown, several design frameworks informed by these play styles have greatly influenced video game development today (e.g. Bartle, 1996; Stewart, 2011; Lazzaro, 2005), as developers try to tune their games to appeal to one or more styles (Reinhardt, 2019).
In the 1970s, around the time videogames were becoming commercialized, American educational psychologist David Kolb and others began forming an experiential theory of learning styles. According to the theory (1984), learning should cycle through experiencing, reflecting, conceptualizing, and experimenting stages, with learners starting with or focusing on the stage they prefer. The theory has been highly influential in language pedagogy, most strongly in multiliteracies pedagogies (New London Group, 1996; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005), and it has been adapted to technology-mediated and gameful L2 pedagogies (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Reinhardt, 2019). Critiques include that it is overly prescriptive and constructivist, it is grounded in individualistic rather than social approaches, it assumes universality of Western cultural learning ideologies, and that as a cycle it does not accommodate the non-linear, complex, and recursive nature of reflective learning (Seaman, 2008).
With the aforementioned setting the stage, the chapter imagines an alternate universe where Caillois did not pass in 1978 but instead visited bilingual Montréal in 1983 where he met Kolb at a hotel bar. Together, they visit an arcade and watch children play games like Space Invaders, Dragon’s Lair, Qix, and Joust. Together, they experience, reflect on, conceptualize, and transform their understandings (though not necessarily in that order) of play and learning styles, as well as of game-mediated language learning.
This chapter explores the history of second and foreign language (L2) learning and teaching beyon... more This chapter explores the history of second and foreign language (L2) learning and teaching beyond the classroom (LLTBC) by examining how L2 learning theories and teaching methods have responded to cultural, educational, and techno-social developments over time. Its history is intertwined with the development of universal education, nationalism, and the language standards movement starting in the 19th century. As globalism emerged and educational practices industrialized, the learning of modern L2s necessarily became a school subject, leading to standardized methods and teacher training in the 20th century. Today, as the Internet has truly created a global village, educators are finding older methods and theories inadequate to accommodate the many informal, incidental, and casual L2 experiences their students bring to the classroom. In response, new perspectives on the phenomenon attempt to build on these new contexts and leverage them for pedagogical implications.
This chapter discusses the informal practice of learnful L2 gaming, that is, playing a vernacular... more This chapter discusses the informal practice of learnful L2 gaming, that is, playing a vernacular (commercial, non-educational) game for the intentional, sometimes incidental purpose of L2 use and practice. The introduction discusses the reasons for this widespread practice and the background section surveys associated theory and research, focusing specifically on informal learning, the notions of learnfulness and gamefulness, and L2 learning with games. The chapter then presents a descriptive study that surveys online, informal advice on learnful L2 gaming culled from three openly accessible online forums from 2014-2016: Reddit, Quora, and Duolingo. In brief, users suggested choosing the right game, playing it learnfully, and interacting with others through and around it, suggestions which mirror findings from research and formal practice. Further discussion of this 'wisdom of the wild' conclude the chapter, with implications for pedagogy.
Digital Games and Language Learning: Theory, Development and Implementation, 2021
The purpose of this chapter is to clarify understandings and advocate for a design-informed, ecol... more The purpose of this chapter is to clarify understandings and advocate for a design-informed, ecologically sensitive approach to the analysis of L2 learning in multiplayer online games. This approach not only considers the ecological context and player actions in gameplay, but the designed elements within games that can be associated with L2 learning as directly as possible. First, I cover the history of MMOGs and how the new field of DGBLL rediscovered them as their popularity grew alongside the social turn in SLA. Then, I detail the issue at hand and argue that research should take a design-informed approach in addition to describing and evaluating the player experience. I then explain the details of such an approach and its main advantage, that it allows for the alignment of design features and the L2 learning affordances in a given L2 gaming ecology. After then detailing three traditional MMOG design types—role play, adventure/progression, and narrative mechanics—I present three more that have emerged recently: survival, open world, and team cooperation. All are presented in terms of how they may be associated with affordances of L2 learning. The conclusion then offers implications for research and practice.
The Challenge: Social media-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so forth-are ubiquitous and popular a... more The Challenge: Social media-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so forth-are ubiquitous and popular among learners, but how can they be used for formal L2 learning purposes? How can we conceptualize the design of social media-enhanced learning activities?
This article presents four metaphors for thinking about the value of social media for L2 learning: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. Abstract As L2 (foreign and second language) instructors and materials designers are faced with online and distance learning mandates, new perspectives on how to use familiar, everyday technologies that learners can access from home like social media are welcome. Imagining these new uses, however, may require going beyond the traditional computer-assisted language learning (CALL) metaphors of computer-as-tutor or tool, which were established before social media. This article outlines four new metaphors that better capture the new user dynamics of social media: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. After a discussion of the brief history of CALL metaphors, these new metaphors are presented with support from research alongside ideas for L2 teaching and learning. K E Y W O R D S computer-assisted language learning (CALL), distance learning, Facebook, teaching methods
Human development can be catalyzed by many factors, for example through adaptation to novel socia... more Human development can be catalyzed by many factors, for example through adaptation to novel social, symbolic, or material conditions, opportunities for individual and collaborative interaction and prob lem solving, and consequential decision making. Learning also develops as a function of large volumes of effortful engagement, which makes relevant the importance of motivation, positive affect, cultivation and maintenance of social relationships of significance, and, of course, the plea sure in pursuing forms of activity that are complex and difficult to master. Digital gaming, and more broadly the role of ludic engagement as a form of developmentally productive activity, brings together many of these factors.
This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily between ... more This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily between 2009 and mid-2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.
After surveying relevant research, this chapter describes a pedagogical framework that considers ... more After surveying relevant research, this chapter describes a pedagogical framework that considers how 'traditional' digital literacies – computer, information, and media literacies – have changed to be more participatory, multifarious, and everyday. It concludes with descriptions of six L2 digital literacies activities that reflect these new qualities. Preview Questions:
The social media boom of today’s society has led to all sorts of informal, everyday literacy prac... more The social media boom of today’s society has led to all sorts of informal, everyday literacy practices involving language use and learning, challenging the position of the classroom as the first and foremost place one learns other languages. What does this mean for language education? How can L2 teachers recognize, legitimize, and leverage these new literacy practices in their classrooms? Research shows the key is to facilitate learner agency and awareness—agency in choosing which, when, where, and in what ways to use these new tools, and awareness of why and how to use them. Agency and awareness are necessary to afford learning and develop learner autonomy—the ability to direct one’s own learning. As learning moves outside the classroom, autonomy is crucial to successful, lifelong learning and a key part of 21st century digital literacy. This chapter surveys the current state of social media-enhanced L2 teaching and learning, and presents a literacies-informed approach to developing autonomy that balances agency and awareness.
As digital gaming has increased in popularity and become a global practice, computer-assisted lan... more As digital gaming has increased in popularity and become a global practice, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) researchers and second and foreign language (L2) educators have begun reconsidering games as potential L2 teaching and learning (L2TL) resources. To provide an overview of this new field, this chapter surveys the history and theory of games in CALL and presents the origins of the field, rationale for the use of games in L2TL, games purposed for L2TL, and major research findings. The chapter then presents three useful heuristics for interpreting research on games in CALL: metaphor, research object, and research orientation. The chapter concludes with implications for future research and practice, focusing on a call for cooperation and collaboration among the stakeholders in the field—CALL researchers, L2 instructors, and the L2 educational gaming industry.
The use of social network sites for second and foreign (L2) language learning and teaching has re... more The use of social network sites for second and foreign (L2) language learning and teaching has recently gained attention by practitioners and researchers of applied linguistics and L2 education. Informed by socially informed theories of language learning and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) studies, researchers have examined L2 learning and use in non-educational or vernacular sites like Facebook, L2 pedagogy using vernacular sites, and the use of commercial social networks designed specifically for language learning, like LiveMocha. Findings implicate the role of self-organized, autonomous learning processes, the development of socio-collaborative learning community, and the challenges of balancing the learning benefits emergent from the user-driven agency of everyday use with the demands to meet formal curriculum-driven objectives. After a brief discussion of influences and definitions, this chapter examines, analyzes, and synthesizes selected research that illustrates these findings, concluding with problems and future directions.
Multiliteracies-aligned teaching and learning in digitally-mediated second language teacher education, C. Blume (ed.), 2024
Leveraging the situated and transformative nature of literacies development, a pedagogy of multil... more Leveraging the situated and transformative nature of literacies development, a pedagogy of multiliteracies (New London Group, 1996) can offer a useful theoretical framework for teacher education applicable to gameful additional language teaching and learning (GL2TL). Multifarious in nature, gaming literacies entail a variety of cognitive and socio-literacies such as system, play, and design literacies. Intersecting with developing teacher identities, development of these literacies is afforded through social, creative, and reflective practices grounded in situated play and design experiences. Following a review of relevant literature, this chapter reports on a two-week online unit about GL2TL in a graduate computer-assisted language learning (CALL) course I designed and taught at a large, public US-American university. New London Group's Pedagogy of Multiliteracies (1996) provided the framework for the unit. Activities for the students, who were mostly L2 teachers with a few years of teaching experience, situated their gaming experiences and identities, introduced and discussed theoretical concepts, and had them play, reflect on, and imagine designs for gameful L2 learning experiences. Analysis of their work show evidence for the development of gaming literacies and the conditions for eventual transformed practice.
The term digital wilds has come to refer to the non-formal online spaces in and through which add... more The term digital wilds has come to refer to the non-formal online spaces in and through which additional language (L2) learner-users, using a multifarious array of tools, platforms, and services, autonomously navigate personal learning trajectories (Sauro & Zourou, 2019), developing L2 digital literacies-mediated identities needed in life-wide settings. This article examined how three successful, autonomous English L2 learner-users critically and creatively engaged in L2 digital literacy practices, ranging from navigating social media and the Internet to 'reprodusing' (Reinhardt & Thorne, 2019) content on video sharing sites. This article focuses on (1) the development of digital learner autonomy in successful English L2 learners and (2) the entanglement of L2 digital literacy practices, identities, and livelihoods. The analysis shows that agency, competence, and self-efficacy played key roles in autonomy development, which was inextricably intertwined with emergent identities and realized through the practice of digital literacies. The findings shed light on the potential role of language educators in leveraging activity in the digital wilds for formal learning purposes.
The Handbook of Language Learning and Technology (Bloomsbury), R. Hampel & U. Stickler, eds, 2024
This chapter discusses the use of social media in formal contexts as a means for language learner... more This chapter discusses the use of social media in formal contexts as a means for language learners to develop cultural competences by means of critical social media literacies. The chapter first explores definitions of social media, research on their use in L2TL for learning language and culture, and the notion of social media literacy. It then discusses the concept of intercultural competence including critiques of the term and the concept of transculturality as well as how social media have been used for culture learning, arguing that cultural competence is better conceptualized as mono-, inter-, and trans-cultural competences. The third section presents implications for formal L2 pedagogy, focusing first on using social media as the means for culture learning, using the metaphors of windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds (Reinhardt, 2020). The chapter concludes with implications for teaching critical social media literacies through Bridging Activities (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008) and other frameworks (e.g. Dooly & Darvin, 2022) as the means for developing cultural competences.
A short non-fiction essay about Falco, Mozart, and 'bad' music I wrote, entirely unrelated to my ... more A short non-fiction essay about Falco, Mozart, and 'bad' music I wrote, entirely unrelated to my regular research, for a friend's writing competition. It was fun to write something different.
Current Trends on Digital Technologies and Gaming for Teaching and Linguistics, 2023
As the field of gameful L2 (second/foreign/additional language) teaching and learning (GL2TL) gro... more As the field of gameful L2 (second/foreign/additional language) teaching and learning (GL2TL) grows, it needs to focus on both research and teaching practice. The digital game industry has grown massive and global over the past few decades with technological advances, surpassing in profit the film and music industries combined. Within the industry, educational gaming is growing at a record pace -- valued at USD 9.2 billion in 2019, it is projected to reach USD 88.1 billion by 2027, a faster pace than even electric vehicles. (Verified Market Research, 2022). This means that whether or not applied linguists and L2 educators are involved in the development process, increasing numbers of educational games for L2TL will be created and sold to individual learners and schools around the world. If there is a healthy body of research on L2 learning and teaching with games, the industry will recognize the value of working with practitioners of both research and teaching when developing these games. If not, they may develop them without our involvement, leading to more failures than successes.
With the rise of ubiquitous social media, many everyday socio-literacy communication practices ha... more With the rise of ubiquitous social media, many everyday socio-literacy communication practices have become mediatized and, thus, commonplace, habitual, and unexamined. This shift poses new opportunities and challenges to second and foreign language (L2) education and computer-assisted language learning (CALL), as debates on whether digital technology can be integrated into L2 classrooms until it is normalized and no longer visible are moot. Most students now come to L2 learning with a range of dispositions or habitus associated with everyday technology-mediated literacies, influencing their reception of formal L2 learning tasks. The impact of this mediatic turn has already been documented, with learners resisting or rejecting learning activity that does not balance task parameters with the ecological affordances of a particular tool vis-à-vis agency. Retaining learner agency, however, poses a challenge due to formal curricular and assessment demands and the need to develop awareness, which is key to developing abilities to use social media for autonomous L2 learning. In response, I propose a paradigm of "technology as everyday" that recognizes the mediatic turn, contrasting with traditional CALL theoretical paradigms where technology is rarified or exceptional. This paradigm implicates approaches to research that are ecologically grounded in emic perspectives of technology-mediatized language use and a relational pedagogy that develops critical awareness of mediatized language use as socio-literacy practice.
Informed by the other studies of the volume, this chapter argues that online language teacher edu... more Informed by the other studies of the volume, this chapter argues that online language teacher education (OLTE) should make five considerations in reconceptualizing curricula and provides examples of learning activities that address each. First it should acknowledge that online digital language use differs considerably from in-person language equivalents, and second, that technology knowledge includes not only how to teach online but what digital language use is. Third, it should recognize that learners and teachers have modern techno-identities developed not only in their academic but their everyday lives as well. Fourth, it should leverage the power of the Internet to develop translanguacultural awareness and fifth, recognize that social presence is key to socio-collaborative learning, both in-person and online.
This chapter explores the phenomenon of SLA in social, multiplayer digital gaming contexts, for e... more This chapter explores the phenomenon of SLA in social, multiplayer digital gaming contexts, for example, in MMOGs, or massively multiplayer online games. After providing some background and history of multiplayer gaming, we focus on the notion of game interaction and how it can be conceptualized in relation to SLA. We then survey research that has applied the aforementioned variety of SLA frameworks to analysis of multiplayer L2 interaction. Using pedagogical metaphors, we then discuss implications for practice and the design of L2 educational games. We then present and advocate for a design-informed approach and describe seven game mechanics or types – adventure, narrative, open world, role play, socialization, survival, and team cooperative – that might be examined more closely for their SLA potential when played in multiplayer modes. We conclude with a call for more research.
Only defining itself as "Computer-Assisted Language Learning" in the 1980s (Higgins, 1983), the f... more Only defining itself as "Computer-Assisted Language Learning" in the 1980s (Higgins, 1983), the field of CALL is still relatively young, with origins in the post-WWII computer revolution, programmed learning, and applied linguistics. From its beginnings, CALL has built its identity not on a fixed set of foundational technologies, but on its ability to adapt language learning theory, research, and pedagogy to new digital technologies as they emerge and evolve, from HyperCard, command lines, and video laserdiscs in the 1980s to YouTube, smartphones, and virtual reality today. This evolving landscape has been chronicled in the Language Learning & Technology (LLT) Emerging Technologies column ever since the founding of the journal in 1997. The topics of the columns, written by Robert Godwin-Jones (and an occasional guest author), have ranged from dynamic web page creation in 1998 to digital gaming in 2014, thus capturing the emerging identity of the field. In recognition of the 25th anniversary of LLT, this special issue focuses on how CALL technologies have emerged over time, developing interdependent relationships with the epistemologies and purposes of CALL research and practice
In 1958, American physicist William Higinbotham created what is now considered the first video ga... more In 1958, American physicist William Higinbotham created what is now considered the first video game, Tennis for Two. Also in 1958, French sociologist Roger Caillois wrote Les jeux et les hommes (published in English in 1961 as Man, Play and Games), an important treatise on play and games as social activity, a promordial form of culture. Building on Johan Huizinga’s seminal Homo Ludens (1950), Caillois introduced key concepts in game studies such as ludus and paidia, equating roughly to rule-based and free form play, and agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry, and ilinx (vertigo), a quadripartite taxonomy of play forms clearly influenced by the traditional four temperaments of Western psychology. Although Caillois’ perspective on digital gameplay is unknown, several design frameworks informed by these play styles have greatly influenced video game development today (e.g. Bartle, 1996; Stewart, 2011; Lazzaro, 2005), as developers try to tune their games to appeal to one or more styles (Reinhardt, 2019).
In the 1970s, around the time videogames were becoming commercialized, American educational psychologist David Kolb and others began forming an experiential theory of learning styles. According to the theory (1984), learning should cycle through experiencing, reflecting, conceptualizing, and experimenting stages, with learners starting with or focusing on the stage they prefer. The theory has been highly influential in language pedagogy, most strongly in multiliteracies pedagogies (New London Group, 1996; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005), and it has been adapted to technology-mediated and gameful L2 pedagogies (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Reinhardt, 2019). Critiques include that it is overly prescriptive and constructivist, it is grounded in individualistic rather than social approaches, it assumes universality of Western cultural learning ideologies, and that as a cycle it does not accommodate the non-linear, complex, and recursive nature of reflective learning (Seaman, 2008).
With the aforementioned setting the stage, the chapter imagines an alternate universe where Caillois did not pass in 1978 but instead visited bilingual Montréal in 1983 where he met Kolb at a hotel bar. Together, they visit an arcade and watch children play games like Space Invaders, Dragon’s Lair, Qix, and Joust. Together, they experience, reflect on, conceptualize, and transform their understandings (though not necessarily in that order) of play and learning styles, as well as of game-mediated language learning.
This chapter explores the history of second and foreign language (L2) learning and teaching beyon... more This chapter explores the history of second and foreign language (L2) learning and teaching beyond the classroom (LLTBC) by examining how L2 learning theories and teaching methods have responded to cultural, educational, and techno-social developments over time. Its history is intertwined with the development of universal education, nationalism, and the language standards movement starting in the 19th century. As globalism emerged and educational practices industrialized, the learning of modern L2s necessarily became a school subject, leading to standardized methods and teacher training in the 20th century. Today, as the Internet has truly created a global village, educators are finding older methods and theories inadequate to accommodate the many informal, incidental, and casual L2 experiences their students bring to the classroom. In response, new perspectives on the phenomenon attempt to build on these new contexts and leverage them for pedagogical implications.
This chapter discusses the informal practice of learnful L2 gaming, that is, playing a vernacular... more This chapter discusses the informal practice of learnful L2 gaming, that is, playing a vernacular (commercial, non-educational) game for the intentional, sometimes incidental purpose of L2 use and practice. The introduction discusses the reasons for this widespread practice and the background section surveys associated theory and research, focusing specifically on informal learning, the notions of learnfulness and gamefulness, and L2 learning with games. The chapter then presents a descriptive study that surveys online, informal advice on learnful L2 gaming culled from three openly accessible online forums from 2014-2016: Reddit, Quora, and Duolingo. In brief, users suggested choosing the right game, playing it learnfully, and interacting with others through and around it, suggestions which mirror findings from research and formal practice. Further discussion of this 'wisdom of the wild' conclude the chapter, with implications for pedagogy.
Digital Games and Language Learning: Theory, Development and Implementation, 2021
The purpose of this chapter is to clarify understandings and advocate for a design-informed, ecol... more The purpose of this chapter is to clarify understandings and advocate for a design-informed, ecologically sensitive approach to the analysis of L2 learning in multiplayer online games. This approach not only considers the ecological context and player actions in gameplay, but the designed elements within games that can be associated with L2 learning as directly as possible. First, I cover the history of MMOGs and how the new field of DGBLL rediscovered them as their popularity grew alongside the social turn in SLA. Then, I detail the issue at hand and argue that research should take a design-informed approach in addition to describing and evaluating the player experience. I then explain the details of such an approach and its main advantage, that it allows for the alignment of design features and the L2 learning affordances in a given L2 gaming ecology. After then detailing three traditional MMOG design types—role play, adventure/progression, and narrative mechanics—I present three more that have emerged recently: survival, open world, and team cooperation. All are presented in terms of how they may be associated with affordances of L2 learning. The conclusion then offers implications for research and practice.
The Challenge: Social media-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so forth-are ubiquitous and popular a... more The Challenge: Social media-Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and so forth-are ubiquitous and popular among learners, but how can they be used for formal L2 learning purposes? How can we conceptualize the design of social media-enhanced learning activities?
This article presents four metaphors for thinking about the value of social media for L2 learning: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. Abstract As L2 (foreign and second language) instructors and materials designers are faced with online and distance learning mandates, new perspectives on how to use familiar, everyday technologies that learners can access from home like social media are welcome. Imagining these new uses, however, may require going beyond the traditional computer-assisted language learning (CALL) metaphors of computer-as-tutor or tool, which were established before social media. This article outlines four new metaphors that better capture the new user dynamics of social media: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. After a discussion of the brief history of CALL metaphors, these new metaphors are presented with support from research alongside ideas for L2 teaching and learning. K E Y W O R D S computer-assisted language learning (CALL), distance learning, Facebook, teaching methods
Human development can be catalyzed by many factors, for example through adaptation to novel socia... more Human development can be catalyzed by many factors, for example through adaptation to novel social, symbolic, or material conditions, opportunities for individual and collaborative interaction and prob lem solving, and consequential decision making. Learning also develops as a function of large volumes of effortful engagement, which makes relevant the importance of motivation, positive affect, cultivation and maintenance of social relationships of significance, and, of course, the plea sure in pursuing forms of activity that are complex and difficult to master. Digital gaming, and more broadly the role of ludic engagement as a form of developmentally productive activity, brings together many of these factors.
This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily between ... more This review surveys and synthesizes the findings of 87 focal pieces, published primarily between 2009 and mid-2018, on the formal and informal use of social media—blogs, wikis, and social networking—for second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL), including studies on the use of educational sites like Livemocha and Busuu and vernacular sites like Facebook and Twitter. The article frames the review in the development of social media and the history of social computer-assisted language learning research. Synthesis identifies common findings, including that social media can afford the development of intercultural, sociopragmatic, and audience awareness, language learner and user identities, and particular literacies. Presentation of the focal pieces and common findings is intertwined with discussion of problematic issues, and each section concludes with a summary and implications for future research and practice.
After surveying relevant research, this chapter describes a pedagogical framework that considers ... more After surveying relevant research, this chapter describes a pedagogical framework that considers how 'traditional' digital literacies – computer, information, and media literacies – have changed to be more participatory, multifarious, and everyday. It concludes with descriptions of six L2 digital literacies activities that reflect these new qualities. Preview Questions:
The social media boom of today’s society has led to all sorts of informal, everyday literacy prac... more The social media boom of today’s society has led to all sorts of informal, everyday literacy practices involving language use and learning, challenging the position of the classroom as the first and foremost place one learns other languages. What does this mean for language education? How can L2 teachers recognize, legitimize, and leverage these new literacy practices in their classrooms? Research shows the key is to facilitate learner agency and awareness—agency in choosing which, when, where, and in what ways to use these new tools, and awareness of why and how to use them. Agency and awareness are necessary to afford learning and develop learner autonomy—the ability to direct one’s own learning. As learning moves outside the classroom, autonomy is crucial to successful, lifelong learning and a key part of 21st century digital literacy. This chapter surveys the current state of social media-enhanced L2 teaching and learning, and presents a literacies-informed approach to developing autonomy that balances agency and awareness.
As digital gaming has increased in popularity and become a global practice, computer-assisted lan... more As digital gaming has increased in popularity and become a global practice, computer-assisted language learning (CALL) researchers and second and foreign language (L2) educators have begun reconsidering games as potential L2 teaching and learning (L2TL) resources. To provide an overview of this new field, this chapter surveys the history and theory of games in CALL and presents the origins of the field, rationale for the use of games in L2TL, games purposed for L2TL, and major research findings. The chapter then presents three useful heuristics for interpreting research on games in CALL: metaphor, research object, and research orientation. The chapter concludes with implications for future research and practice, focusing on a call for cooperation and collaboration among the stakeholders in the field—CALL researchers, L2 instructors, and the L2 educational gaming industry.
The use of social network sites for second and foreign (L2) language learning and teaching has re... more The use of social network sites for second and foreign (L2) language learning and teaching has recently gained attention by practitioners and researchers of applied linguistics and L2 education. Informed by socially informed theories of language learning and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) studies, researchers have examined L2 learning and use in non-educational or vernacular sites like Facebook, L2 pedagogy using vernacular sites, and the use of commercial social networks designed specifically for language learning, like LiveMocha. Findings implicate the role of self-organized, autonomous learning processes, the development of socio-collaborative learning community, and the challenges of balancing the learning benefits emergent from the user-driven agency of everyday use with the demands to meet formal curriculum-driven objectives. After a brief discussion of influences and definitions, this chapter examines, analyzes, and synthesizes selected research that illustrates these findings, concluding with problems and future directions.
This book offers a comprehensive examination of the theory, research, and practice of the use of ... more This book offers a comprehensive examination of the theory, research, and practice of the use of digital games in second and foreign language teaching and learning (L2TL). It explores how to harness the enthusiasm, engagement, and motivation that digital gaming can inspire by adopting a gameful L2TL approach that encompasses game-enhanced, game-informed, and game-based practice. The first part of the book situates gameful L2TL in the global practices of informal learnful L2 gaming and in the theories of play and games which are then applied throughout the discussion of gameful L2TL practice that follows. This includes analysis of practices of digital game-enhanced L2TL design (the use of vernacular, commercial games), game-informed L2TL design (gamification and the general application of gameful principles to L2 pedagogy), and game-based L2TL design (the creation of digital games purposed for L2 learning). Designed as a guide for researchers and teachers, the book also offers fresh insights for scholars of applied linguistics, second language acquisition, L2 pedagogy, computer-assisted language learning (CALL), game studies, and game design that will open pathways to future developments in the field.
Presentation for Center for Language Acquisition: Penn State, 2024
Today, as the Internet has created a global village, educators are finding older methods and theo... more Today, as the Internet has created a global village, educators are finding older methods and theories inadequate to accommodate the many informal, incidental, and casual L2 experiences their students bring to the classroom. In response, new perspectives on language learning and teaching beyond the classroom (LLTBC) (Reinders, Lai, & Sundqvist, 2022) attempt to build on these new contexts and leverage them for theoretical and pedagogical implications. A historical perspective on the phenomenon of LLTBC (Reinhardt, 2022; Reinhardt, in progress) can help in this endeavor, as it shows that L2 learning theories and teaching methods have been mutually shaped by simultaneous cultural, educational, and techno-social developments throughout history. Most recently, digital technologies--for example, social media and digital gaming--have created new contexts for independent, informal language use and learning that challenge some pre-digital postulations about LLT while confirming others. Critically examining the history of LLTBC in relationship to the practices of formal language education puts concepts like teaching methodology, learner autonomy, and assessment in a new light while also offering implications on how to bridge informal and formal LLT practices and make formal learning experiences relevant.
A talk on learning English by developing social media literacies and examples of activities that ... more A talk on learning English by developing social media literacies and examples of activities that develop them
The field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) emerged in the 1980s in wealthy industria... more The field of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) emerged in the 1980s in wealthy industrialized nations alongside growing adoption of classroom and personal computer technology. With roots in the post-WWII programmed instruction movement, CALL grew in parallel to second language acquisition, psychology, applied linguistics, and educational technology, reflecting developments in those fields. For example, structural-behaviorist models of learning in the 1960s gave way to communicative frameworks in the 1980s, also paralleling a shift from language labs to personal, networked desktops. Most recently, mobile, multimodal, and informal computing is co-emergent with ecological, relational, and distributed models of language learning and teaching.
To understand CALL as it has developed and will evolve into the future, however, requires a broader perspective that recognizes the role of technology in language teaching and learning throughout history -- beginning before industrialization and including non-digital technologies such as textbooks, teaching standards, and formal degrees -- as tools for implementation of industrial models of schooling, standardized curricula, and national language policy. As it develops into the future, CALL practice will continue to be integrated with new technologies whose emergence is driven not necessarily by pedagogy and learning theory but by commercial and even political interests outside of academia. The work of CALL theoreticians and practitioners, then, is to recognize the situated nature of these technologies, receive them critically, and adapt them for productive educational purposes.
From an ecological perspective (van Lier 2004), affordances for gameful L2 learning (Reinhardt 20... more From an ecological perspective (van Lier 2004), affordances for gameful L2 learning (Reinhardt 2019) are contingent on a number of variables aligning that relate to player behavior, the context of play, and the design of the game. While a game title usually shares some common mechanics with other titles in its genre -- for example, engaging in dialogues, doing multiplayer quests, building, or collecting resources -- it is designed as a unique combination of mechanics, and each time it is played, different mechanics interact with player action to result in different dynamics, which may include engagement, social interaction, language use, and language learning. Therefore, generalizing the implications from the study of L2 gameplay using one title to other titles, even if they are in the same genre, may be risky. A better approach is to focus on the features of the game that can be directly associated with player behaviors, that is, the mechanics themselves (Dixon, 2021; Reinhardt, 2021).
The purpose of this talk is to clarify understandings and advocate for a design-informed, ecologically sensitive approach to the analysis of L2 learning in gameful contexts. This approach not only considers the ecological context and player actions in gameplay, but also the designed elements within games that can be associated with L2 learning as directly as possible. First, I will detail the issue at hand, that associating learning outcomes with genres or titles rather than specific mechanics is based on a faulty understanding of game design. I will argue that to avoid this misstep, research should take a design-informed approach in complement to description and evaluation of the player experience. Referring to past and recent research that takes this approach, I will then describe it in detail, focusing on its main advantage, that it allows for the alignment of design features and the L2 learning affordances and can be sensitive to gameplay ecology.
Researching gameful language teaching and learning (L2TL) is challenging for a number of reasons,... more Researching gameful language teaching and learning (L2TL) is challenging for a number of reasons, including societal and academic skepticism towards gaming as a legitimate field of study, an eclectic array of available theoretical framing, a lack of available models and guidance, and the absence of a single disciplinary home. Approaching the practice from fields as varied as CALL, applied linguistics, education, games studies, computer science, and game design, would-be researchers bring a variety of theories, methods, conceptualizations, and expectations about what is research-worthy, why it should be studied, and what its purpose is -- for example, to make language learning more effective, to inform our understandings of learning, to improve pedagogy, or even just to build a commercially viable language learning game. Research has included classroom interventions using commercial games (Shintaku, 2016), qualitative case studies of informal practices (Vazquez-Calvo, 2020), descriptive analyses of multiplayer L2 gameplay (Scholz, 2016), corpus analysis of game mechanics to extrapolate learning affordances (Dixon, 2021), examination of the potential of games as resources for the exploration of sexuality and identity (Blume, 2021), and design-informed studies on the development and implementation of educational AR games (Perry, 2021). As difficult as it may be to apprehend this eclectic diversity, it should not be thought of as a liability, but rather an asset that reflects the potential of gameful L2TL to disrupt and refresh current practices in language learning research and teaching more broadly. While it may seem divergent and disunified, research is doing the epistemological groundwork that builds scholarly legitimacy. As much as teachers need examples of clear and practical applications of gameful L2 teaching, we need also to support research in the field and promote it for the promise of its implications.
The field of digital game-based language learning (DGBLL) is at a point in its short history wher... more The field of digital game-based language learning (DGBLL) is at a point in its short history where it is facing something of an identity crisis. After the field was in the spotlight in the 2000s and 2010s (Gee, 2004; Reinhardt, 2019), some are now arguing (e.g. York et al, 2021) that there hasn't been enough applied, practice-focused research because there has been too much focus on issues of design and too little on the perspective of teachers. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be agreement on the object of study and what counts as legitimate practice, as many similar, overlapping terms have emerged in attempts to delineate the field's purview. In this talk I will respond to these arguments and attempt to map out the state of the field today. It may seem that the course of DGBLL is stagnant for a few reasons, for example, the low level of gaming literacies among teachers, the difficulties of implementation and lack of institutional support, and the lack of well-designed commercial educational games for L2 learning. It is also problematic that because of societal attitudes and the lack of appropriate research models and guidance, designing and undertaking research in DGBLL may be eschewed and considered unserious -- an ironic reality that we can only address by doing more and better research. These challenges are substantial, but like a team coordinating a boss battle, we can overcome them. In an era where online learning has become not an option but a necessity, where traditional teaching methods have become stale and unable to reach new generations, and where millions of youth around the world would rather play games than almost anything else, we are obligated to keep grinding away. Eventually, we will level up.
Designing effective gameful environments for second and foreign (L2) learning – from a game-infor... more Designing effective gameful environments for second and foreign (L2) learning – from a game-informed collaborative classroom learning activity to a full-fledged educational game – requires consideration of how game features and mechanics can afford L2 learning dynamics. Certain mechanics, for example time control, narrative, and goal-orienting, have been shown to support gameful L2 learning. Another consideration is player identity and disposition – some students are hardcore gamers and others might dislike games or not believe they can function as learning tools – approaching the activity with both learnful and gameful attitudes is thus key to success. Finally, play is voluntary and players should be motivated to learn and use the L2 in order to play, as opposed to only playing in order to learn. Appealing to play styles is thus important – players may prefer achieving, socializing, exploring, or ‘playing the trickster’, while avoiding or disliking other styles. At the same time, transformative gameful L2 learning involves taking risks and trying on new identities, which may only be possible when players go out of their comfort zones. This talk will explore these concepts and offer ideas for how to create gameful L2 learning experiences that challenge and motivate players by leveraging mechanics in designs, acknowledging dispositions, and by appealing to, at the sametime critically situating, play styles.
Estimates are that upwards of 2 billion people played vernacular (non-educational) digital games ... more Estimates are that upwards of 2 billion people played vernacular (non-educational) digital games in 2017, with 800 million active players – numbers that increase by the thousands every month (Statista, 2018). Games are produced by thousands of designers in scores of countries in dozens of languages, albeit usually the top 25 or so. Avid gamers thus often play in languages not their own, leveraging their gaming literacies to play (e.g. Chik, 2014). Others whose language is available recognize that the language of many globally marketed titles can be switched into other top languages, perhaps an L2 they’d like to learn or practice. Unfortunately, when gamers ask their L2 instructors if there are games to learn the L2, they are sometimes confronted with blank stares or warnings to avoid exposure to the vernacular, non-academic language with which commercial digital games are rife. Because of the widespread availability of L2 learning resources in the wilds of the Internet, gamers then may turn to to social media for advice.
The digital presentation will outline a descriptive study that surveys this online advice and compares it to findings and recommended practices in gameful CALL (Sykes & Reinhardt, 2012; Reinders, 2012; Reinhardt, in press). A preliminary analysis of 145 posts on Reddit and Quora from 2014-2016 showed that, based on their own experiences, users recommend a wide variety of vernacular game titles and genres for L2 learning – anything that affords casual and enjoyable language use. They recommend playing games at the right proficiency level whose rules are not too unfamiliar, and that include a lot of language use and features offering time to read, re-read, listen, and re-listen. They suggest using subtitles, mimicking voices, referring to dictionaries, creating vocabulary lists, leveraging related media, and interacting with other players. These findings are evidence that the “the wisdom of the wild” is remarkably sound and aligned with research, and that digital gaming literacies are participatory, multifarious, and everyday (Reinhardt & Thorne, in press). Broader implications are that, in contrast to many formal L2 pedagogical practices, extramural informal L2 learning practices are self-directed, non-standardized, and heterogeneous, even as they may be intentional and effective.
Vernacular multiplayer digital games—commercial games not intentionally designed for L2 learning—... more Vernacular multiplayer digital games—commercial games not intentionally designed for L2 learning—have come to the forefront of CALL research recently because of their attested affordances for collaborative L2 learning (Thorne, 2008; Sykes & Reinhardt, 2012; Peterson, 2013; Reinhardt & Thorne, 2016; Reinhardt, 2017). Collaborative co-action in these games seems to afford the dialogic languaging activity that leads to L2 learning (Zheng & Newgarden, 2017).
However, L2 teachers may misinterpret and over-generalize research findings because of lack of knowledge of how game titles and genres differ, and how designed game mechanics interact with player and contextual variables to afford dynamics (Hunicke, Leblanc, & Zubec, 2004) associated with L2 use and learning. Such affordances may be available in a MMOG like World of Warcraft to players with high collaborative gaming literacy that may not be available to those with high linguistic proficiency (e.g. Rama, Black, van Es, & Warschauer, 2012), while the designed mechanics of a MMOG like Guild Wars 2 may actually allow L2 learners to avoid game narratives and social interaction for the sake of individualized gameplay (Zhao, 2014). Different titles in different multiplayer genres—e.g. MOBAs, social RPGs, social networking games, and some strategy games—offer a range of multiplayer mechanics that combine with contextual gameplay and player variables that may lead to conflict dynamics of avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration (Kilmann & Thomas, 1977), each of which associates with different affordances for L2 use and learning. In addition, single player titles may also be played collaboratively, lending them unique L2 learning affordances otherwise unavailable when played solo (e.g. deHaan, Reed, & Kuwada, 2010; Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009; Shintaku, 2018).
This talk surveys and evaluates research on collaborative L2 gaming from a game design analysis perspective, with implications for formal practice, research, and development. Examples from a variety of studies, including the presenter’s own, will be presented to refine a heuristic for evaluating multiplayer vernacular game titles with regards to their potential affordances for collaborative L2 learning.
With the rise of ubiquitous social media, many everyday socio-literacy communication practices ha... more With the rise of ubiquitous social media, many everyday socio-literacy communication practices have become mediatized (Lundby, 2009), and thus commonplace, habitual, and unexamined. This shift poses new opportunities and challenges to second and foreign language (L2) education and computer-assisted language learning (CALL), as debates (e.g. Bax, 2011) on whether digital technology can be integrated into L2 classrooms until it is normalized and no longer visible are moot. Most students now come to L2 learning with a range of dispositions or habitus associated with everyday technology-mediatized literacies, influencing their reception of formal L2 learning tasks. The impact of this mediatic turn has already been documented, with learners resisting or rejecting learning activity that does not balance task parameters with the ecological affordances of a particular tool vis-à-vis agency (Arnold, Ducate, & Kost, 2012; Chen, Shih, & Liu, 2015; Lin, Groom, & Lin, 2013; Reinhardt & Zander, 2011). Retaining learner agency, however, poses a challenge due to formal curricular and assessment demands and the need to develop awareness, which is key to developing abilities to use social media for autonomous L2 learning.
In response, I propose a paradigm of “technology as everyday” that recognizes the mediatic turn, contrasting with traditional CALL theoretical paradigms where technology is rarified or exceptional. This implicates approaches to research that are ecologically grounded in emic perspectives of technology-mediatized language use (e.g. Jones, Chik, & Hafner, 2015), and a relational pedagogy that develops critical awareness of mediatized language use as socio-literacy practice (e.g. Reinhardt & Thorne, 2011; Chun, Kern, & Smith, 2016).
This online presentation, given on 3 October 2016 for the SIGATEC 2016 conference at UFSM, Brazil... more This online presentation, given on 3 October 2016 for the SIGATEC 2016 conference at UFSM, Brazil, explores the concept of "gameful" as a heuristic for game-enhanced, game-based, and game-informed L2TL.
This presentation reports on a collaboration between applied linguists, game designers, and Mojav... more This presentation reports on a collaboration between applied linguists, game designers, and Mojave language educators and linguists to develop a place-based mobile game for heritage language and traditional ecological knowledge learning through storytelling. It was presented at AAAL/CAAL 2015 in Toronto.
The Doctorado Interinstitucional en Educación (Interinstitutional Doctorate on Education), ELT Ed... more The Doctorado Interinstitucional en Educación (Interinstitutional Doctorate on Education), ELT Education Major, at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas was one of the stakeholders supporting the 51st ASOCOPI’s Annual Congress. Named after the title of this introduction the Congress was a vivid forum for English language teachers and experts interested in discussing how technology has been integrated into English language teaching (ELT) and learning. This book shows a selection of papers presented in the Congress that reflect achievements and challenges for English language teaching and learning development. There are three parts to this book, which constitute the three Rs of technology in ELT as a contribution of this Congress for the academic community: Rethinking, Researching and Re-experiencing.
The two chapters in Part I are based on reflections that operate as a response to the paradigm shifts within education where the use of information and communication technologies have transited from technical and instrumental curricular views to more praxis-based or critical ones. Reinhardt (this volume) presents a “literacies-informed approach to developing autonomy that balances agency and awareness” within a social media framework. In presenting a state of the art of research on social media in second language teaching and learning, Reinhardt establishes that social media technologies such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites, as well as SNECSs are the context where L2 learning could be facilitated. They should also be constrained if conditions for learners’ investment and autonomy are not sensitive to the “micro-politics” of social media use for educational purposes. In order to develop social media enhanced learner-autonomy it is challenging to bear in mind the interrelationship between agency and awareness. Méndez and Guerrero (this volume) critically examine potential contributions of virtual learning environments to the professional development and profiles of English language teachers. It is suggested that in such contexts of professional development, the teacher as an intellectual, the possibilities for actual teaching, the emergence of other voices and situated practices should be taken into account. Méndez and Guerrero also introduce virtual learning environment competences that have become part of language teachers’ profiles incorporating resistance practices. Such practices if appropriately understood could aid to more adequate and context sensitive programs for language teachers’ professional development.
The chapters in this book illustrate a central debate: “Technology in ELT: Achievements and challenges for ELT development”. Surrounding this debate, one could draw on the relationships of agency and awareness in social media incorporation to education and L2 literacy development. One could also draw on the idea of (re)configuring resistances to fixed language teacher profiles and professional development opportunities for in-service teacher working within virtual learning environments. The book also illustrates research on preservice English language teacher, which aids to fuel the debate whether one incorporates strategies for lesson planning, for pedagogical reflection or for planning language instruction. Finally, within this debate, workshops inspired in principles of flipped learning explore the usefulness of thinking language instruction, skills development and professional development differently. What next? This book is a contribution to the debate and hopefully will be used as basis for continuing debating the issues that would open doors for new Technology in ELT achievements and challenges.
In this teacher's manual we offer a pedagogical framework that can be used for designing and impl... more In this teacher's manual we offer a pedagogical framework that can be used for designing and implementing wraparound learning activities for commercial off-the-shelf, or vernacular, games in formal L2 classrooms, by having learners explore, examine, and extend game discourses. It also includes an example set of materials for English learning with the browser-based casual game LifeQuest.
This manual has been designed for use by teachers of advanced foreign language at the secondary a... more This manual has been designed for use by teachers of advanced foreign language at the secondary and post-secondary level in pre- and in-service professional development workshops and events on the use of Internet communication tools in the foreign language classroom. It is also suitable for use in independent self-study. The manual is divided into three sections for each of the three major technologies covered: chat, blogs, and wikis. Each section begins with a scenario of classroom technology use that is designed to provide a context for participant reflection and discussion of concerns. This is followed by discussion of the technology and its application in the classroom, with questions for reflection. There are also ‘Consider This’ side boxes of related information designed to spur additional discussion. Each section concludes with a case study analysis activity.
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Articles & Book Chapters by Jonathon Reinhardt
In the 1970s, around the time videogames were becoming commercialized, American educational psychologist David Kolb and others began forming an experiential theory of learning styles. According to the theory (1984), learning should cycle through experiencing, reflecting, conceptualizing, and experimenting stages, with learners starting with or focusing on the stage they prefer. The theory has been highly influential in language pedagogy, most strongly in multiliteracies pedagogies (New London Group, 1996; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005), and it has been adapted to technology-mediated and gameful L2 pedagogies (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Reinhardt, 2019). Critiques include that it is overly prescriptive and constructivist, it is grounded in individualistic rather than social approaches, it assumes universality of Western cultural learning ideologies, and that as a cycle it does not accommodate the non-linear, complex, and recursive nature of reflective learning (Seaman, 2008).
With the aforementioned setting the stage, the chapter imagines an alternate universe where Caillois did not pass in 1978 but instead visited bilingual Montréal in 1983 where he met Kolb at a hotel bar. Together, they visit an arcade and watch children play games like Space Invaders, Dragon’s Lair, Qix, and Joust. Together, they experience, reflect on, conceptualize, and transform their understandings (though not necessarily in that order) of play and learning styles, as well as of game-mediated language learning.
This article presents four metaphors for thinking about the value of social media for L2 learning: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. Abstract As L2 (foreign and second language) instructors and materials designers are faced with online and distance learning mandates, new perspectives on how to use familiar, everyday technologies that learners can access from home like social media are welcome. Imagining these new uses, however, may require going beyond the traditional computer-assisted language learning (CALL) metaphors of computer-as-tutor or tool, which were established before social media. This article outlines four new metaphors that better capture the new user dynamics of social media: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. After a discussion of the brief history of CALL metaphors, these new metaphors are presented with support from research alongside ideas for L2 teaching and learning. K E Y W O R D S computer-assisted language learning (CALL), distance learning, Facebook, teaching methods
In the 1970s, around the time videogames were becoming commercialized, American educational psychologist David Kolb and others began forming an experiential theory of learning styles. According to the theory (1984), learning should cycle through experiencing, reflecting, conceptualizing, and experimenting stages, with learners starting with or focusing on the stage they prefer. The theory has been highly influential in language pedagogy, most strongly in multiliteracies pedagogies (New London Group, 1996; Kalantzis & Cope, 2005), and it has been adapted to technology-mediated and gameful L2 pedagogies (Thorne & Reinhardt, 2008; Reinhardt, 2019). Critiques include that it is overly prescriptive and constructivist, it is grounded in individualistic rather than social approaches, it assumes universality of Western cultural learning ideologies, and that as a cycle it does not accommodate the non-linear, complex, and recursive nature of reflective learning (Seaman, 2008).
With the aforementioned setting the stage, the chapter imagines an alternate universe where Caillois did not pass in 1978 but instead visited bilingual Montréal in 1983 where he met Kolb at a hotel bar. Together, they visit an arcade and watch children play games like Space Invaders, Dragon’s Lair, Qix, and Joust. Together, they experience, reflect on, conceptualize, and transform their understandings (though not necessarily in that order) of play and learning styles, as well as of game-mediated language learning.
This article presents four metaphors for thinking about the value of social media for L2 learning: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. Abstract As L2 (foreign and second language) instructors and materials designers are faced with online and distance learning mandates, new perspectives on how to use familiar, everyday technologies that learners can access from home like social media are welcome. Imagining these new uses, however, may require going beyond the traditional computer-assisted language learning (CALL) metaphors of computer-as-tutor or tool, which were established before social media. This article outlines four new metaphors that better capture the new user dynamics of social media: windows, mirrors, doorways, and playgrounds. After a discussion of the brief history of CALL metaphors, these new metaphors are presented with support from research alongside ideas for L2 teaching and learning. K E Y W O R D S computer-assisted language learning (CALL), distance learning, Facebook, teaching methods
To understand CALL as it has developed and will evolve into the future, however, requires a broader perspective that recognizes the role of technology in language teaching and learning throughout history -- beginning before industrialization and including non-digital technologies such as textbooks, teaching standards, and formal degrees -- as tools for implementation of industrial models of schooling, standardized curricula, and national language policy. As it develops into the future, CALL practice will continue to be integrated with new technologies whose emergence is driven not necessarily by pedagogy and learning theory but by commercial and even political interests outside of academia. The work of CALL theoreticians and practitioners, then, is to recognize the situated nature of these technologies, receive them critically, and adapt them for productive educational purposes.
The purpose of this talk is to clarify understandings and advocate for a design-informed, ecologically sensitive approach to the analysis of L2 learning in gameful contexts. This approach not only considers the ecological context and player actions in gameplay, but also the designed elements within games that can be associated with L2 learning as directly as possible. First, I will detail the issue at hand, that associating learning outcomes with genres or titles rather than specific mechanics is based on a faulty understanding of game design. I will argue that to avoid this misstep, research should take a design-informed approach in complement to description and evaluation of the player experience. Referring to past and recent research that takes this approach, I will then describe it in detail, focusing on its main advantage, that it allows for the alignment of design features and the L2 learning affordances and can be sensitive to gameplay ecology.
Research has included classroom interventions using commercial games (Shintaku, 2016), qualitative case studies of informal practices (Vazquez-Calvo, 2020), descriptive analyses of multiplayer L2 gameplay (Scholz, 2016), corpus analysis of game mechanics to extrapolate learning affordances (Dixon, 2021), examination of the potential of games as resources for the exploration of sexuality and identity (Blume, 2021), and design-informed studies on the development and implementation of educational AR games (Perry, 2021). As difficult as it may be to apprehend this eclectic diversity, it should not be thought of as a liability, but rather an asset that reflects the potential of gameful L2TL to disrupt and refresh current practices in language learning research and teaching more broadly. While it may seem divergent and disunified, research is doing the epistemological groundwork that builds scholarly legitimacy. As much as teachers need examples of clear and practical applications of gameful L2 teaching, we need also to support research in the field and promote it for the promise of its implications.
In this talk I will respond to these arguments and attempt to map out the state of the field today. It may seem that the course of DGBLL is stagnant for a few reasons, for example, the low level of gaming literacies among teachers, the difficulties of implementation and lack of institutional support, and the lack of well-designed commercial educational games for L2 learning. It is also problematic that because of societal attitudes and the lack of appropriate research models and guidance, designing and undertaking research in DGBLL may be eschewed and considered unserious -- an ironic reality that we can only address by doing more and better research.
These challenges are substantial, but like a team coordinating a boss battle, we can overcome them. In an era where online learning has become not an option but a necessity, where traditional teaching methods have become stale and unable to reach new generations, and where millions of youth around the world would rather play games than almost anything else, we are obligated to keep grinding away. Eventually, we will level up.
The digital presentation will outline a descriptive study that surveys this online advice and compares it to findings and recommended practices in gameful CALL (Sykes & Reinhardt, 2012; Reinders, 2012; Reinhardt, in press). A preliminary analysis of 145 posts on Reddit and Quora from 2014-2016 showed that, based on their own experiences, users recommend a wide variety of vernacular game titles and genres for L2 learning – anything that affords casual and enjoyable language use. They recommend playing games at the right proficiency level whose rules are not too unfamiliar, and that include a lot of language use and features offering time to read, re-read, listen, and re-listen. They suggest using subtitles, mimicking voices, referring to dictionaries, creating vocabulary lists, leveraging related media, and interacting with other players. These findings are evidence that the “the wisdom of the wild” is remarkably sound and aligned with research, and that digital gaming literacies are participatory, multifarious, and everyday (Reinhardt & Thorne, in press). Broader implications are that, in contrast to many formal L2 pedagogical practices, extramural informal L2 learning practices are self-directed, non-standardized, and heterogeneous, even as they may be intentional and effective.
However, L2 teachers may misinterpret and over-generalize research findings because of lack of knowledge of how game titles and genres differ, and how designed game mechanics interact with player and contextual variables to afford dynamics (Hunicke, Leblanc, & Zubec, 2004) associated with L2 use and learning. Such affordances may be available in a MMOG like World of Warcraft to players with high collaborative gaming literacy that may not be available to those with high linguistic proficiency (e.g. Rama, Black, van Es, & Warschauer, 2012), while the designed mechanics of a MMOG like Guild Wars 2 may actually allow L2 learners to avoid game narratives and social interaction for the sake of individualized gameplay (Zhao, 2014). Different titles in different multiplayer genres—e.g. MOBAs, social RPGs, social networking games, and some strategy games—offer a range of multiplayer mechanics that combine with contextual gameplay and player variables that may lead to conflict dynamics of avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration (Kilmann & Thomas, 1977), each of which associates with different affordances for L2 use and learning. In addition, single player titles may also be played collaboratively, lending them unique L2 learning affordances otherwise unavailable when played solo (e.g. deHaan, Reed, & Kuwada, 2010; Piirainen-Marsh & Tainio, 2009; Shintaku, 2018).
This talk surveys and evaluates research on collaborative L2 gaming from a game design analysis perspective, with implications for formal practice, research, and development. Examples from a variety of studies, including the presenter’s own, will be presented to refine a heuristic for evaluating multiplayer vernacular game titles with regards to their potential affordances for collaborative L2 learning.
In response, I propose a paradigm of “technology as everyday” that recognizes the mediatic turn, contrasting with traditional CALL theoretical paradigms where technology is rarified or exceptional. This implicates approaches to research that are ecologically grounded in emic perspectives of technology-mediatized language use (e.g. Jones, Chik, & Hafner, 2015), and a relational pedagogy that develops critical awareness of mediatized language use as socio-literacy practice (e.g. Reinhardt & Thorne, 2011; Chun, Kern, & Smith, 2016).
The two chapters in Part I are based on reflections that operate as a response to the paradigm shifts within education where the use of information and communication technologies have transited from technical and instrumental curricular views to more praxis-based or critical ones. Reinhardt (this volume) presents a “literacies-informed approach to developing autonomy that balances agency and awareness” within a social media framework. In presenting a state of the art of research on social media in second language teaching and learning, Reinhardt establishes that social media technologies such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites, as well as SNECSs are the context where L2 learning could be facilitated. They should also be constrained if conditions for learners’ investment and autonomy are not sensitive to the “micro-politics” of social media use for educational purposes. In order to develop social media enhanced learner-autonomy it is challenging to bear in mind the interrelationship between agency and awareness. Méndez and Guerrero (this volume) critically examine potential contributions of virtual learning environments to the professional development and profiles of English language teachers. It is suggested that in such contexts of professional development, the teacher as an intellectual, the possibilities for actual teaching, the emergence of other voices and situated practices should be taken into account. Méndez and Guerrero also introduce virtual learning environment competences that have become part of language teachers’ profiles incorporating resistance practices. Such practices if appropriately understood could aid to more adequate and context sensitive programs for language teachers’ professional development.
The chapters in this book illustrate a central debate: “Technology in ELT: Achievements and challenges for ELT development”. Surrounding this debate, one could draw on the relationships of agency and awareness in social media incorporation to education and L2 literacy development. One could also draw on the idea of (re)configuring resistances to fixed language teacher profiles and professional development opportunities for in-service teacher working within virtual learning environments. The book also illustrates research on preservice English language teacher, which aids to fuel the debate whether one incorporates strategies for lesson planning, for pedagogical reflection or for planning language instruction. Finally, within this debate, workshops inspired in principles of flipped learning explore the usefulness of thinking language instruction, skills development and professional development differently. What next? This book is a contribution to the debate and hopefully will be used as basis for continuing debating the issues that would open doors for new Technology in ELT achievements and challenges.