View Content #19491

by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director

The past decade has witnessed profound interest in the ways in which practitioners and researchers alike have considered digital games in the foreign language classroom (Sykes and Reinhardt, 2012). With intentioned application to classroom teaching, the potential benefits of the use of digital games to facilitate second language (L2) pragmatic acquisition remain. One key, fairly untapped, resource is existing communities surrounding various types of commercial games (Thorne, Black, and Sykes, 2009).

Popular commercial games offer access to online communities of players around the world. As such, discourse patterns, interactional strategies, and cross-cultural communication are critical, core activities of participation in games communities and offer learners the opportunity to engage in a variety of digital contexts.  Teachers can leverage this potential through the use of activities that: (1) introduce learners to various types of pragmatic behaviors through salient and targeted observation, (2) enable leaners to analyze these behaviors in existing communities, and, eventually, (3) gain the skills necessary to participate in multilingual communities. Reinhardt and Thorne (2008) propose the Bridging Model, an approach designed to increase literacy and participation in attendant discourse communities. Their model targets five core objectives, and, while not only applicable to games and L2 pragmatics, it is highly relevant.  

Their “advanced language proficiency goals intend to:
1.    improve understanding of both conventional and internet-mediated text genres, emphasizing the concept that specific linguistic choices are associated with desired social-communicative actions;
2.    raise awareness of genre specificity (why certain text types work well for specific purposes) and context-appropriate language use;
3.    build metalinguistic, metacommunicative, and analytic skills that enable lifelong learning in the support of participation in existing and future genres of plurilingual and transcultural language use;
4.    bridge toward relevance to students’ communicative lives outside of the classroom; and
5.    increase student agency in relation to the choice, content and stylistic specifics of the texts contributing to the language learning process.”
-    from Thorne and Reinhardt (2008, p. 566)

To reach these goals, Thorne and Reinhardt (2008) propose three instructional steps. First, during the Observation and Collection stage learners collect and observe relevant information, as made salient by the instructor. This step is followed by Guided Exploration and Analysis, in which learners are supported in detailed analysis of the target pragmatic behaviors. Finally, at the Creation and Participation stage they are encouraged to engage with the community in some way and, ideally, participate. While certainly not the only approach, commercial games and their attendant discourse communities offer one resource to promote L2 pragmatic development. For further information, sample lesson plans, and game reviews, see Games2Teach, a resource designed to support language teachers in the implementation digital games in the language classroom.

References

Sykes, J. & Reinhardt, J. (2012). Language at Play: Digital Games in Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. Series on Theory And Practice In Second Language Classroom Instruction, J. Liskin-Gasparro & M. Lacorte, series eds. Pearson-Prentice Hall.

Thorne, S., Black, R., & Sykes, J. (2009). Second Language Use, Socialization, and Learning in Internet Interest Communities and Online Games. Modern Language Journal, 93, 802-821.

Thorne, S. L. & Reinhardt, J. (2008). “Bridging activities,” new media literacies and advanced foreign language proficiency. CALICO Journal, 25, 558–572.