Serious games that are designed for educational purposes promote acquisition of knowledge and skills that are valued in the both the virtual realm and the real world. The challenge is to design serious games that leverage meaningful play to produce positive learning outcomes in the real world. I argue that serious games designed for educational purposes should follow an iterative design paradigm that integrates learning objectives with specific game tasks. Furthermore, assessment of players' knowledge before and after gameplay assists serious game designers with design modifications that support learning. I argue that video games can function as unorthodox language learning tools. Applying user-centered design techniques, I determine the feasibility of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) as pedagogical tools for Second Language Acquisition (SLA). I conduct experimental studies, allowing English as Second Language (ESL) students to playtest a commercial MMORPG. Significant results from experimental studies which include assessment of ESL students' knowledge before and after gameplay reveal the importance of in-game social interactions in the target language between native speakers and non native speakers. Furthermore, in-game social interactions offer a higher degree of engagement and motivation for learning than traditional SLA pedagogy. I conclude that in-game social interactions foster emergent collaborative behaviors between ESL students and Native English speakers, and scaffold ESL students' second language vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension skills. These results inform the design of two game modules that support second language vocabulary acquisition, reading comprehension and conversational fluency. Finally, I introduce user-centered design as a framework for re-purposing commercial games as serious games that produce positive learning outcomes.

Last modified

• 09/20/2018

Creator

• Yolanda Alysia Rankin

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2SX67

Subject

• Computer Science

Keyword

• Second Language Acquisition
• computer assisted language learning
• game design
• user-centered game design
• Video games

Date created

• 2008-08-26

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright