Multiuser Digital Games as Sites for Research and Practice

Abstract

Digital games are significant for language learning not only as potentially useful new tools within the confines of traditional foreign language contexts, but more importantly, as new semiotic and cultural environments that construct, and are constructed by, social practices. In this chapter, we explore multiuser games as ontologically new social practices that warrant attention within the scope of language learning. In doing so, we specifically address two types of multiuser digital games—multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and synthetic immersive environments (SIEs)—and their role in research and practice. In terms of research, we suggest goal orientation and social consequence as two especially meaningful elements of multiuser digital games for language learning. We then highlight ways multiuser digital games might be meaningfully considered in educational practice. This includes a discussion of task-based approaches as well as literacy development.