#dgbl

[socialstuds-blog]

WolfQuest

         WolfQuest is an adventure game that involves the player, as a two-year old wolf, making a life on its own. As the player you must learn to hunt, find a mate, and establish territory. The first part, in which you learn to hunt, teaches hunting and navigational skills. The game also teaches about survival, and the landscape and weather are variables through which the player must navigate. The game is good for teaching social and survival skills. It also acts as a metaphor for preparing for life in the real world.

[socialstuds-blog]

Playing History

           In Playing History: Plague the player is a boy whose mother has contracted the plague. It is up to the player to learn more about this pandemic. The game explores how to identify symptoms and corresponding diseases. It incorporates aspects of microbiology as well. The player must find scientific evidence for the causes and symptoms of the plague. It also puts the player into history as a family member, who must take care of his relatives. This look into the daily life problems of a child at the time of a plague outbreak brings history to life for players.

            In Playing History: Slave Trade the player is a British slave who is tasked with assisting a trader in bringing back more slaves. The player, as in the Plague, takes on a historical role and must make decisions pertaining to the character’s life. It also raises issues of economics and ethics. The player must choose between doing his duty as a slave ship supervisor, or protecting his sister who is a captured slave. I think this is a great game for teaching about slavery and its problems, and does so from a slave’s perspective which I think is important.

[socialstuds-blog]

Week 1 Reflection

Week 1 Reading Reflection

           Richard van Eck’s articles introduced me to DGBL. In his 2006 article van Eck argues that digital game-based learning is a valid, and important, part of educating the “net generation.” He identifies that building games for students, having students build games, and using commercial games are all beneficial for learning. I was not previously familiar with the terminology, but I was reminded of a personal experience I had with DGBL. It was a few years after van Eck published his article that I attended a high school Introduction to Business class. A large portion of the class involved us, the students, playing a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) game. In the game I chose to run a restaurant, and it took me through all the steps of setting up a business. I had to learn budgeting, consumer patterns, and bookkeeping skills. Van Eck also mentions games suited for social students, like Civilization and Age of Empires, which I hope to make use of in my classroom as a teacher.

           In the article he wrote nine years later, van Eck discusses some of the issues teachers face today in terms of DGBL. He argues that critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills are “21st century skills.” I agree that these skills are especially important in the age of technology. Internet research, for example, can be tricky when almost anyone can create websites with false information. Van Eck discusses problem-based learning and the “maker movement” which involves building games. This reminded me of the game Super Mario Maker. I have never played the game personally, but to my knowledge it is a game in which players create the various levels of the game. I once saw a play-through of an especially difficult level that the player had made himself. Overall Van Eck had me thinking about my past experiences as a student in the “net generation,” and introduced me to new concepts I can use as a teacher during the future development of DGBL.

[kotobaminers]

The hype is real

Today was a very interesting day, and I’ll get to the reason for that later. For a start though, let me say that I am exhausted.

Why?

Two reasons:

I had to carry a bunch of games to class today:

Scythe (Collector’s Edition no less..!)

- Sheriff of Nottingham - 2 x Pandemic - Forbidden Island - Dead of Winter 2. I had to walk around all of these groups and help them learn the rules to these games, answer questions, and generally make sure all students were on task.

The KR framework puts students in control. They are in charge of choosing a game, learning the rules, and progressing the play session. But… I’m still the expert regarding game rules and English, so I’m still very much needed to oversee the proceedings during class. Still, its a good kind of busy. I’m not policing kids into using English or staying on task, I’m helping them understand difficult concepts and getting them ready for game play, so I’m happy in my current role.

The “New Student”

(For me at least)

As you probably know by now, my context can be difficult sometimes. I work in a science and tech university with students that are generally not interested in learning English, so sometimes it is hard to get them motivated.

However, today I walked into class to be greeted by a new face. I thought he might be re-sitting the class (as in, he failed the class last year, and was thus retaking my class this time).

Anyway, I left him alone and started the class as normal.

He joined the Dead of Winter group and proceeded in taking control of the rulebook, reading very proficiently, and generally taking control of the group’s progression.

He doesn't sound like a student that would need to retake an English class… is what I started to think.

When his group had a question regarding the rules, he would ask in English:

“What does this mean?” “What do I do when a character is bitten?” etc.

Great!

Come the end of the class:

York: Are you retaking this class?

Student: No.

(This is a first year “RT” class)

York: Are you a first year RT student?

Student: Yes.

(OK, I’m finally figuring this out: If he is also a first year RT student, this implies that he is registered with another teacher and sneakily coming to my class, possibly because he has heard that we will be playing games… Not cool)

York: OK, so which teacher are you registered with?

Student: I’m not… I have EIKEN level 2.

York: So you don’t need to take English.

Student: I know, but I want to join this class..!

Amazing!

Let me explain:

English classes are compulsory at my university for all students, unless they have a high TOEIC score or EIKEN level 2 and above. So essentially, this student doesn’t need to take English. He has a bye. Yet here he is going out of his way to attend my class, a class that he won’t even get credit for.

This is fine by me. He was a great influence on his group, tried hard to keep the discussions in English, completed the assigned worksheet tasks, and was obviously keen (almost hungry) to learn the game rules with his peers.

A good day indeed.

[kotobaminers]

My normal teaching context is classes of 20 to 25 students, so they are split up into different groups based on the game they chose to play the week before. However, today I had the opportunity to use the KR framework in a class of only five students. It was a big change, and in today’s post, I’d like to talk about some of the things that I noticed that are different between this one-off class and my normal teaching context, as well as my reflections as a participant. I’ll be touching on the following topics:

Researcher as participant

Students staying on task

Individualized instruction

The ZPD and NS-NNS interactions

The actual lesson that we did was the pre-play, rule-learning class. Students didn’t choose the game that we played, I selected it before the class. The game is called “Dead Last” and you can find reviews of it here. I'll quote the SUSD site for their description of how it plays so you can get the gist of the type of interaction that is involved.

Dead Last […] begins with 6-12 players sat around a table, each with a coloured standee, a private deck of cards and an unusually shifty look. As soon as the game begins people will start murdering each other by consensus and/or killing themselves by accident, and your objective is to be one of the last 2 people left standing.

Essentially:

You vote for someone to be murdered and all play a card facedown

The person (or 2 people in a tie) with the most votes is eliminated

If you didn't vote for the person that was murdered, you are also eliminated

If you suspect you'll be the target, you may play an AMBUSH card and if it turns out that you ARE the target, you can eliminate one of those that voted for you.

The game rules are not the main focus of this post, so if you are curious as to the rest of the rules, please check the above links.

So what did I learn today? Read on:

I personally need to experience the framework

I have to admit it. As a researcher, I read papers, have a firm grasp on mainstream SLA theory (mostly), think deeply about how to engage students in their learning, and make appropriate worksheets. But, I don’t actually trial these worksheets on myself.

Today I had the opportunity to participate as a student and experience the pre-play worksheet firsthand. It was a very valuable experience. There are three sections on the worksheet.

The first section ask students to scan the rulebook and look for interesting and useful words that they think they will need during gameplay.

The second section asks students to write down one important rule for the game they're about to play.

The third section is about tactics and it requires the students to write what they think they will do during the game.

Regarding the first section, the problem is that there is a difference between the vocabulary in the rulebook and the phrases and vocabulary that they will use during the game. So I saw students writing down new words that they did not know, but the majority of these words were only useful in explaining and understanding the rules and theme of the game. So after the students completed the first section, we actually had a brainstorming session to think about the types of words we will use during the game. My original plan was that this would be done by scanning the rulebook. Instead it actually took a second, slightly more focused activity. I know Jonathan has done work with one of his undergraduates which examines the difference in rulebook and gameplay discourses, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the two do not match up.

The second section regarding important rules for the game I thought was a sound section that did not require too much editing. It was interesting for me to see that the students had different ideas for what they thought was an important rule. So getting students to share these ideas is possibly beneficial in making all students aware of the important rules of the game.

The third section was also quite interesting in that it requires students to write about their tactics. But Dead Last is a competitive game, so in actual fact we decided that it was best to keep the tactics talk until after the game had finished.

In summary then, I found the experience of actually taking part in the class really helped me refine the worksheet.

Students staying on task

The biggest difference that I noticed between this small class and the larger class is just how on-task they were. In the larger classes there are usually four to five different groups, and so it is impossible for me to sit down with them all and guide them through the worksheet. They have to figure out exactly what I want them to do, and they are also in charge of completing it. However in today's class with only five students, because of my presence maybe, students took time to do the activities on the worksheet one by one. What I noticed in larger classes was that students were not reading and analysing the words in the rulebook, but merely translating it into Japanese (so that they could understand it, of course).

Individualized instruction

During our brainstorming session for words and phrases that we thought would be useful for gameplay, we had the opportunity to talk about the word “betray.” One student asked me how to say 裏切り者 in English, which led to me talking about “betray,” “to be betrayed,” and the word “traitor.” This “just in time” feedback and discussion is something that I cannot achieve in larger classes. Although I'm not 100% sure of Jonathan’s and Peter’s teaching situation, I felt like having a small group of students like this was perhaps similar to some of their own projects (and made me a little jealous, haha).

It felt great to be able to help students on such a personal, almost one-to-one level as they needed it.

Social interactions in the ZPD

It goes without saying really, but today was a fantastic chance to experience learners working in the ZPD. Having me, an expert speaker of the TL, as part of the group helped them hear how natives would approach certain constructs during the game, and they were able to modify their own output based on what they heard. Additionally, from a psycholinguistic perspective, I saw the value of recasts as a way for learners to notice any issues with their output. Recasts however, do not require a native speaker or expert as such, their peers should be able to provide such feedback, too.

For an example of our interactions, I showed a certain card to one of the students and said:

York: I will definitely vote for this player.

Student: Definitely? (repeating the word to show that he did not understand the meaning)

York: Yes, definitely. (reformulating the sentence:) I will 100% vote for this player.

Student: Oh, I see.

York: Will you vote for this player?

Student: Yes.

York: Definitely?

Student: Definitely!

This leads me to the more essential point that this game provided the opportunity for such rich interaction, and a stronger sense of the value of my research in this field.

I only made informal observations today, but they helped me think more critically about the worksheets I am developing. Additionally, participating in gameplay confirmed what I have been reading in the literature on game-based language learning, and my own assumptions regarding the power of the Kotoda Rollers methodology. That is: with the right amount of support (activities and teacher instruction), games can be used effectively as part of a TBLT approach to language learning, and I’m positive about my work and research direction.

In the next class, we will go over the recording of today’s gameplay session and focus on their English mistakes and unnecessary Japanese usage. Thus, hopefully raising their understanding of the gaps in their interlanguage, and preparing them to replay the game at a future date.

As always, thanks for reading.

[kotobaminers]

Learning rules & Takoyaki parties

I was trying hard to come up with a metaphor as to why it is important to learn game rules in English before playing a board game. On other words, not taking the easy route and learning the rules in Japanese first, but actually taking the time to sit down with the English rulebook and go through it with their groupmates.

Of course there are a bunch of good reasons why they should do this. It's L2 input for a start..! It's a reading task which is activating their passive skills, allowing them to recognise and perhaps recall vocabulary without time constraints. From a sociocultural perspective, it allows them to discuss the meaning of phrases and words as a group, and perhaps notice the meaning of certain words just from context. But I wanted to give them something easy to understand without going all meta-linguistic, so here is what I came up with:

The ever-so-not-quite Takoyaki party

(A takoyaki is a fried dough ball with octopus (tako) and pickled ginger in. It is often garnished with mayonnaise and sauce as well as many other things. See the picture above)

[I said:]

Imagine that you and your friends are having a takoyaki party. Now what do you need to have a takoyaki party? Flower, eggs, water, tako, pickled ginger, seaweed… etc. etc.

So, what if you all arrive at the party and Friend 1 has brought sliced bread, Friend 2 has brought a lettuce, Friend 3 has brought some cheese, and you’ve brought some tomatoes… Is this going to be a takoyaki party?

No.

It is going to be a party, but not a takoyaki party. Maybe a sandwich party. Or at a push, a pizza party..? But definitely not a takoyaki party.

[I digressed:]

So where does this fit into what we are doing in this class? Well, to play these games in English, you need the tako, flour, water, and egg, too. These are the nouns, verbs, adjectives, grammar, etc. that you will find in the rulebook.

Now, imagine if you just learnt the rules to the game at home in Japanese… You could come to class and play the game, but it definitely won’t be a game in English. It will be a game in Japanese. Which is like the difference between a sandwich party and a takoyaki party.

[I ended, rather triumphantly:]

That is why you need to learn the rules in English: So you can play the game in English. The goal of this class.

So, what do you think? Was this just bonkers, or did I make a strong(?) and valid point here?

Thanks for reading as always.

[kotobaminers]

Rule Setting

This blog post is a reflection on the feedback I received from the initial implementation of the #kotobarollers framework (1.0 we are calling it) back in the second term of 2015. As part of that implementation, I collected quantitative and qualitative data from students in the form of a course-end questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed to see which activities students completed, which the did not, the elements of the framework they liked and those that they thought could use improvement. It is these last two questions, that were given as open-ended questions where I feel the most interesting and useful data was collected.

Firstly, let’s look at some of the comments I received.

Good points of the framework

Practical English usage

A lot of the comments I received regarding the positive aspects of the framework relate to how playing games was students’ first real experience of using English as a means of communication, and not just as a subject. The term practical came up a lot:

本当の意味での「実践的な英会話」を行う事ができた点。

I got a real sense of “practical English communication” in this class.

This is a fantastic result of the framework for me. I want students to use English, not just study it.

From a TBLT perspective, the non-linguistic goals of gameplay were the catalyst to get students talking, and using vocabulary and grammar to solve a real life activity: winning (or at least participating) the game. Compare that to a class that is fronted by the teacher saying, “Today we are going to do the activities on page 34.” Or, “Today we will talk about how to give directions in English.” Students’ expectation would vary greatly I think.

Moving on:

Willingness to communicate

The fun, and laid-back nature (for some) of the games (of course, there are high-stakes games like Werewolf or Spyfall where tensions are high) really helped learners become more willing to communicate with their peers.

英語のスピーチやプレゼンなどは緊張するが、ゲームだと気軽に話せる。

I get nervous when doing a speech or presentation in English, but with games, I could speak more freely

Again, an excellent point, but I don’t want to dwell too much on these positive points. I hoped that I would see these kinds of results before starting.

Negative points of the framework

Excessive Japanese usage

Yes, I’m sure you could see this one coming. By far and away, the biggest criticism of both the framework and the students’ own performances was that they talked a lot of Japanese during play. And this is what I want to address with the rule-setting lesson. Comments:

Blaming others:

ゲームの中で英語で話そうと生徒が努力していない時があった

Some students didn’t make effort to speak English during gameplay

Blaming themselves:

どうしても途中で英語での話し方がわからなくなり、日本語で言ってしまうのは、仕方ないと思うのですが、そのあとにだんだん日本語で話すのが増えてきてしまうのは良くないと思います。

It’s only natural that we’d use Japanese occasionally during gameplay, but once we did, then we’d end up using more and more Japanese, which I don’t think is good.

So what do they think would be a good way to reduce Japanese usage?

ボードゲームをする上で日本語で話したことによるペナルティをゲームに慣れてきたら設けるべきだと思った

When playing, if we speak Japanese, I think there should be some kind of penalty given to that student.

OK. Great. We are on the right track here. Students realise that they are not meeting me halfway by speaking Japanese, so let’s put it to them to fix it.

Rule setting lesson

So that’s where this blog post comes in. I want to put down on paper my thoughts regarding class rule-setting, what I’ve done to towards achieving this, and a reflection on my first class of doing this.

I’ve had some negative experiences with gamification, and both Jonathan and I are ardent fans of the work of Kohn: Punished by Rewards. So I really didn’t want to go full metal jacket on setting rules. That’s partly why I didn’t set any explicit rules regarding the use of the L2 in the first place: I left it for students to figure out. But the result of that has been that students just talk Japanese the whole class. Granted, some of them feel guilty about it, leading to them writing on the final report that they feel something should be done about it.

Rules setting is a tricky beast though. If punishments and rewards are too heavily utilised, we run the risk of “gamifying” the classroom and creating a negative environment. The addition of points and badges, or more generally “rewards” are sources of extrinsic motivation (from Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory), which can sometimes become the only reason students attempt to do an activity.

The often quoted example is a student that might go to the library every day in the summer to read out of sheer pleasure, then one day, he receives a point or sticker for visiting the library. After the summer is over the stickers stop coming, and so does he. He got so used to getting the stickers that receiving them became the sole reason for reading.

In other words, I don’t want to reward or punish students too severely in fear that it just makes them resent the class or lose focus on the goal of the class.

On another note about the idea of play, Nicholson (2015) writes:

A key concept from play that is important when thinking about gamification is that play must be optional (Callois, 2001). If something is not optional, then it is not, by definition, play. If a worker is forced to engage with a game, it is no longer a play experience.

This is also very pertinent to my own situation where my whole class is built around getting students to play games. I am kind of forcing students to play games right? Well, not really. Reading a few paragraph7s below on Nicholson’s paper we get:

One way to soften a required engagement with a gamification system is to ensure that the system allows for exploration. This falls in line with the concept of Choice.

Yes. My students have a LOT of choice in class.

What game to play

Who with

The post-play activities they complete.

Anyway, moving on:

I attended a conference in Okinawa in February where I was introduced to the work of Tim Murphey et al. (2014) who talked about the concept of getting students motivated by thinking about ideal classmates. There work is laid out in more academic terms in this paper.

Essentially: First, get students to think about what they would look for in an ideal classmate. Then, the following week, compile all the students answers and give them back. Students are then in a position to see what others are expecting of them. Finally, a few weeks after this, move the shift of questioning onto the students themselves, giving them chance to reflect on if they have been behaving as an ideal student based on the feedback they got from the first week.

I was impressed.

So I started thinking about how I can use this in my own class.

What is the goal?

I think the first step that wasn’t mentioned in the Murphey paper is getting the students to consider what the actual goal of the class is. This can be from their perspective, my perspective or the university’s perspective.

I want them to become more fluent in English, and particularly their speaking skills. The university wants them to gain discreet English skills week after week as they are presented………. yeah…. I can see that working…. Their goals (as they wrote on the board today ranged from: “enjoy English,” and “become an active communicator in English,” but I think a good proportion of them would probably have written “get a passing credit” as the main goal.

The idea is that based on these goals that we have identified, we need to figure out how we can best help each other achieve them. Here is a copy pasta of the worksheet I concocted:

What is the goal of this class?

What problems prevent us from achieving that goal?

What kind of behaviour will help us achieve the goal? Think of some examples:

Good

Bad

Can you think of a good rule for Japanese use (for students, and me, Mr. York)?

How can Mr. York help you speak English?

How can you help other students speak English?

Fairly to the point questions in my opinion. The only question that directly asks about rule setting is the one about Japanese usage, because I want to hear what they think, their opinions and possible solutions to the problem of excessive Japanese usage in class.

What rules can help them stay on task?

Upon completing the survey, they had 10 minutes to discuss with their group what they had written. I expected a lively conversation, but to be honest, a lot of them looked bored. There are pockets of active, interested students, but unfortunately as this is a non-English major class, there are a lot of uninterested students. There isn’t much I can do about that (or haven’t found a way so far). Here is an overview of their responses.

Their ideas regarding what can be done were quite uninspired, too. The main idea was to ban Japanese usage, which to me just seems impractical. They need Japanese for some parts of the class and its not to be demonised. That’s not the idea I want to have proliferate in my classes.

I think the idea that some students came up with a few months ago is the best way to go: by having them check themselves during gameplay with the addition of a new rule:

If I speak Japanese [something bad happens].

Well, I’m not done with this yet. I think this kind of consciousness raising is important, and I want students to work with me to decide what is good or bad behaviour, and get them to help each other stay on task.

Next week I will be handing back a list of good and bad behaviours that they wrote, and ideas for how other students can help them achieve the class goal. let’s see if it inspires them to become more aware of themselves as active learners with responsibility towards learning English themselves, rather than being taught by me at the front of the class. Because we all know how the assimilation of knowledge is as simple as me passing it from my head and into yours….

As always, thanks for reading my rambles.

References

Callois, R. (2001). Man, Play and Games. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

Murphey, T., Falout, J., Fukuda, T., & Fukada, Y. (2014). Socio-dynamic motivating through idealizing classmates. System, 45(1), 242–253. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.06.004

Nicholson, S. (2015). A recipe for meaningful gamification. In Gamification in Education and Business (pp. 1–20). http://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10208-51

[kotobaminers]

Reflection of 2013

Original research goals

My original intention for this research project was to follow a number of players as they played the game Minecraft, and assess the game as an arena for language learning. My interest in this idea came predominantly from a paper by Rama (2012), who completed a similar study using the MMORPG “World of Warcraft.” However, as I began to undertake my research, I found that there was a massive difference between the two games, so much so that it was impossible to measure the affordances of Minecraft in the same way that Rama and his team did. Without going into too much detail, the issues are highlighted below:

There is no form of input from the game itself (written/spoken)

There is a dire lack of native speakers.

There are no in game goals.

Year Review

Achievements

What have I achieved? I’d say a lot. In terms of research though, I’m not sure. Some concrete examples of things I have created:

Beginners Japanese syllabus

Weekly classes

Language learning activities.

Speaking practice activities during classes

Explorative, real-world tasks

Let’s Play: This is the most holistic, student-led activity so far in terms of the lack of scaffolding and teacher-student relationship between participants.

Role plays (need more though)

Games aimed at practicing certain language elements.

guess who (same as the board game)

animal guessing (2 player description game)

build mission (for learning prepositions)

Spot the difference (two player game)

Things to improve (curriculum related)

More Input

listening and reading

More activities / arenas for practicing language skills

More meaning-based tasks

Things to improve (Minecraft related)

It would be very beneficial to the server to have more JP players.

More events to get the community to pull together, and for increasing the opportunity to practice speaking.

A better economy.

Dissatisfactions and research goal re-evaluation

Over the course of this year I have been working on setting up a course for learning Japanese in a virtual world. The course is a constant work in progress and is still unfinished in terms of a specific end goal. Of recent though, based on prompts from students on the course, specifically questions such as “How long is this course?” “When will the course end?” etc. I have decided to set a concrete goal, which is to teach people enough for them to be able to pass the Level 5 (lowest level) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. This course will begin in January.

Regarding the tasks, activities, and course content, I have semi-unconsciously created a course that isolates grammar and vocabulary into discrete grammar-focused activities as exemplified by the PPP methodology. Lessons are located in one of 10 identical “JP buildings” which are skyscraper-esque buildings with a lesson provided on each floor. As an example: one lesson may be centred around how to conjugate adjectives into their negative form. This lesson may appear on the fourth floor of the JP3 building. Outside and surrounding each of these buildings are activities, mostly dyadic in design, that are carried out during the lesson or for homework. Keeping with the negative adjectives focused lesson, the activity coupled with this lesson is a room filled with numerous objects (items that appear natively in Minecraft). In pairs, students have to guess which object their partner is thinking of by using adjectives:

A: Is it red?

B No, it isn’t.

A: Is is sharp?

B: Yes, it is!

… etc.

As a researcher, it has taken me a while to admit, but the system outlined above is not what I intended to do in regards to “language learning in a virtual world.” I think there is a lot more potential than what I have currently achieved. Essentially, I feel like I have merely replicated a typical real-life language-learning context that could be achieved in a standard, real-world classroom rather than exploit the full potential of the virtual world. I have succeeded in creating a PPP-influenced course where the curriculum is based on separated, incremental linguistic skills. In other words, I feel that I have failed to create holistic, task-based, real-world, virtual-world specific activities and learning environment. Maybe I am being too harsh on myself here, but I feel that such thinking is essential for delivering research that can expand the current body of literature.

Improved research design and goals

Of recent then, I have been reading much more on TBLT in virtual worlds, and key papers being:

Jauregi, K. et al., 2011. Verbal interaction in Second Life: towards a pedagogic framework for task design. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 24(1), pp.77–101.

O'Dowd, R. & Waire, P., 2009. Critical issues in telecollaborative task design. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 22(2), pp.173–188.

In the Jauregi (2011) paper the authors provide a very detailed pedagogy for choosing appropriate tasks for virtual-worlds, particularly with the goal of increasing the opportunity for intercultural communication or cultural competence. They also compare the linguistic output of students  when completing 2 different types of task. The first type is a task that could potentially be completed without using the virtual world. That is to say, video conferencing or even text-based chat would suffice to complete the task. The second type of task is more pertinent to the virtual world, relying on certain elements of the world that do not appear in real-life. This means that the second types of tasks could not be completed via video-conferencing or with text chat.

Their results suggested that there was more output from students when completing the first task type. The implications of this are thus:

Their “virtual-world specific” tasks were not designed rigorously enough

The output of students using virtual worlds as a language learning environment inherently less for a certain reason. Such as:

Non-linguistic cues are more salient / used in virtual worlds

The environment itself provides affordances to be used as a mediating tool. In other words, students do  not need to rely on spoken discourse only (SCT-related)

Students’ output is hindered as they have to deal with the cognitive demands of the virtual world as well as attention to linguistic forms etc.

Presuming that Reason 1 above is valid, this means that their pedagogy has room for improvement and they indeed state such within the paper:

Task design principles have to be further specified for 3D virtual world settings, focusing on enhancing rich oral interaction to be necessary for task completion, while exploiting at the same time the exploratory, functional, and gaming possibilities of Second Life as much as possible.

It is my plan, then, to improve upon their pedagogy of task-based learning in virtual worlds. I plan to do this with relation to relevant literature. Typically, TBLT, sociocultural theory, and CALL.

Improved methodology

In terms of data, I feel like it may be appropriate to abandon the original plan of conducting the ethnographic study. It may be more advantageous (and feasible) to go down the route of analysing students output over a few different tasks. Additionally, keeping insights and feedback from students regarding their perception of such tasks would be useful in improving tasks in the future.

Sample Task and with considerations

The initial set up for this class is:

Extremely open

No (explicit, predetermined) language focus

No (explicit, predetermined) goals

Intermediate / advanced students

Japanese only

Improvements and structure:

Instructor designs a task, based on the following criteria:

Overview of task

Roles

Expectations (what you think students will do)

Preparation

Task Failure criteria

Specific goals of the task

Overall Goals

Instructor posts details of the task on the public web forum

including some grammar/vocabulary points

maybe a place for a pre-class discussion

maybe a place to discuss the different roles.

Students prepare for the task.

Task is carried out by students, but teachers provide “just in time” help and support.

After the task

Students write up a journal

Students give feedback

Chat logs / recordings are uploaded and may be analysed for mistakes etc.

Considerations

Reading

— reading the chat box

— reading other peoples journals?

— If I provide a few closze-gaps of the dialogue for homework?

— if i select a few grammar points that I think came up a lot and set some questions based on that for homework?

writing

— post activity journal

— game chat box

listening

— listening to others

speaking

— speaking to others

Task Design considerations

The task exposes the learners to rich target language input

Does the task provide input that is authentic/unmodified, relevant/challenging, and multimodal?

Yes, input is provided from other players, is totally authentic.

Does the task enhance interactional modification or negotiation of meaning?

Yes, to a certain extent, although there are no pre-defined goals, goals emerge based on immediate needs in the game. The defining of these goals is a task itself, then communication is required to complete them.

Does the task elicit the use of authentic resources both before and during performance?

Yes. A planning setting before players carry out the task is needed.

Does the task elicit the use of both predefined resources and resources provided by the interlocutors themselves?

No, there are no predefined resources.

Need to add a few reading resources.

Possibly get students to re-listen to the previous weeks activity and look for certain mistakes / grammar / vocab

The task elicits meaningful target language use

Meaningfulness:

Do the learners use the language pragmatically and communicatively?

Yep

Do the learners use the language to engage in activities involving real-world processes of L use?

Yes

Do the learners have the choice how to use the language, that is, no linguistic forms are prescribed in advance?

Yes

Use:

Does the task involve some kind of gap (information, reasoning, culture)?

Yes - reasoning.

Yes, information

regarding where someone may be at a given point

regarding what each person wants to do

regarding the best way to achieve the task goals

Does the task have the right balance between language-demanding and content-demanding processing?

Not sure what this one means.

Does the task promote learning by doing (processing and interaction)?

Oh yes.

Does the task promote collaborative learning?

complementary roles, information, perspectives

yes, players have to work together to achieve the task goals.

two-way information exchange

yes

convergent, goal-specific communication

Yep

positive interdependence

Not unless explicitly stated. Students should give each other their own roles within the pair/group’s activity.

shared responsibilities

yes, see above

individual accountability

yes, see above

The task requires the learners to focus on form

Does the task create a ‘’semantic space’’ in order to elicit processing specific L2 forms?

yes, once a “day” at night. Inline planning and FonF

Does the task promote the detection and use of relevant chunks?

not until post-task possibly.

Add some close-gap / vocab quissing after the completion of the task for homework

Does the task elicit feedback on form by the native speaker on language of the learner?

Yes, if natives join.

Does the task provide opportunities to focus on form when learner need arises (negotiation, elaboration, recasts, etc.)?

Yes, at night. Native questions to the learners also helps.

The task has a clearly defined communicative outcome

Does the task have a clearly defined purpose that is relevant for all interlocutors?

Not so clearly defined. The purpose of the activity is negotiated among the participants. This avoids some of the “task-as-workplan” and “task-in-action” discrepancies?

Does the task have a clearly defined communicative end product?

no. see above

Does the task provide instructions that meet the needs of all interlocutors?

No, see above

Does the task aim at subjective, personal information exchange, related to objective, factual resources?

Not sure. There may be a concrete goal such as creating a particular structure, collecting a certain resource, etc. and then individuals may provide information in regards to how to complete that task subjectively.

Is the task both open (not fixed, prescribed) and determined (goal-oriented)? The task enhances strategic awareness on language learning and use

Does the task elicit planning, feedback, and reflection

on language use

on communication

on intercultural issues

The task takes the communicative competence level of all interlocutors into account

Is the task aligned to the proficiency level of oral interaction and intercultural awareness with respect to the following:

task goal

task topic

task procedure?

General:

Are clear stages in task sequencing provided?

Introduction

Comparison/contrasting

Construction/conversion

Production/publication

Reflection

The task makes effective use of the challenges and affordances of virtual worlds

Is the virtual context sufficiently relevant and attractive for the task goal?

Is the virtual context sufficiently prototypical, without being a caricature?

Is the virtual context used in a socially, cognitively, affectively, creatively, and spatially effective and challenging way, e.g. by

learning by exploring

learning by collaborating

learning by being (development of avatar character)

learning by building/constructing

learning by championing (focusing on strengths and successes) 􏰀 learning by expressing

Does the virtual context provide a safe environment (e.g. no other listeners/interlocutors are present)?

Is the number of interlocutors relevant for the communicative goals, topic, and procedure?

Is sufficient familiarisation provided with environment and technical aspects of virtual communication?

Does the task trigger oral communication, that is, is intensive oral communication needed for successful task completion?

Rama, P.S. et al., 2012. Affordances for second language learning in World of Warcraft. ReCALL, 24(03), pp.322–338.