Designing and Using a Scenario-Based Digital Game to Teach Chinese Formulaic Expressions

A well-designed game can offer enormous opportunities for pragmatics learning by providing an immersive environment where learners can practice L2 in a variety of social contexts. To examine the applicability of gaming to L2 pragmatics learning, this study used the platform Unity to develop a scenar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:CALICO journal 2020-01, Vol.37 (1), p.1
Main Authors: Tang, Xiaofei, Taguchi, Naoko
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chinese
Chinese languages
Computer & video games
Computer Games
Context
Dining Facilities
Educational Games
Feedback
Feedback (Response)
Formulaic language
Instructional Design
Learning
Learning Experience
Phrase Structure
Pragmatics
Robotics
Second Language Instruction
Second Language Learning
Teaching Methods
Video Games
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A well-designed game can offer enormous opportunities for pragmatics learning by providing an immersive environment where learners can practice L2 in a variety of social contexts. To examine the applicability of gaming to L2 pragmatics learning, this study used the platform Unity to develop a scenariobased digital game (Questaurant) to teach Chinese formulaic expressions. In the game, the player took the role of a robot who works in a restaurant in China and runs quests by interacting with built-in characters. The game incorporated four key gaming attributes: context (representation), goals, feedback, and interactivity. This paper reports the usability of these gaming attributes based on interview data collected from 12 learners of Chinese who completed the game. Results showed that the combination of context and interactivity in Questaurant delivered an engaging learning experience, while explicit feedback directly contributed to learning. Participants raised some concerns regarding the motivational appeal of goals and implicit feedback in the game. This paper further discusses implications for developing and utilizing digital games for pragmatics learning.
ISSN:2056-9017
0742-7778
2056-9017
DOI:10.1558/cj.38574