Designing Serious Games for Computer Assisted Language Learning – a Framework for Development and Analysis

Abstract

In the paper we shall argue for the potential of serious games for teaching and learning languages online. The paper builds on data from a research project, Serious Games on a Global Market Place (2007–2010), in which an online gamebased platform for teaching and learning English (www.Mingoville.com) has been studied in the context of teaching and learning English in Danish primary schools. The initial research process – which was based on an analysis of the platform as well as interviews with platform developers – suggested that one of the challenges of developing a design for serious games in language education consists of renegotiating the serious games genre to balance drill-based exercises with contextualised simulations that involve fruitful thinking, real language interaction and student engagement. One hypothesis of the project is, following the initial research and drawing on previous research in the field, that the process of designing serious games for CALL may significantly benefit from involving children’s own experiences with using languages (primarily English) online for gaming and interacting. This to some extent involves transcending the dichotomy of ‘serious’ and ‘pleasurable’ learning found in the discourse on learning with games inside and outside schools. TS - CrossRef