Let's Go! Learning Chinese with a Place-based Mobile Game

Abstract

This dissertation responds to Wagner’s (2015) proposal to systematically design social infrastructures to support second language (L2) learning and use “in the wild” (Hutchins, 1995). My research began with the creation of a place-based augmented reality (AR) mobile game (cf. Holden & Sykes, 2011; Thorne et al., 2015; Zheng et al., 2018), 我们走吧 (“Let’s Go!”) and its implementation in the curricular context of a Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) program at Peking University. The game aligns with textbook materials and extends them into gaming activities around two categories of places on campus: everyday activity hubs (e.g., cafeterias, gyms) and culturally-significant sites (e.g., Boya Tower, Weiming Lake). 我们走吧 (“Let’s Go!”) was designed to dynamically augment classroom learning with the “vibrancy of linguistically and experientially rich engagement” (Thorne et al., 2021, p. 108) in the virtual-physical and social-material worlds. Building on recent advancements in Multimodal Conversation Analysis (Mondada, 2019) focusing on mobility (Haddington et al., 2013), temporality (Deppermann & Streeck, 2018) and engagement with objects in interaction (Nevile et al., 2014), this study investigates how CSL students navigate in the game and real world and cooperatively accomplish diverse place-based gaming activities. The students’ gameplay sessions were video recorded during a seven-week course. The analysis focuses on three recurrent activities: collaborative reading of the game’s instructions and dialogues, approaching local passers-by for participation in the game, and knowing and experiencing places through community-engaging social interactions. The findings show that students managed multiple digital devices (e.g., the game device, students’ personal smartphones) simultaneously as a group to accomplish game tasks. The “togetherness” (Lehn, 2013) was particularly salient when students coordinated their actions to move from one place to another on campus. Furthermore, students tracked specific linguistic resources as learning objects (Markee, 2008), such as the pronunciation, the Chinese character form, and the interpretation of lexical items in the game text. Finally, students show development of increasingly diversified linguistic and semiotic resources (Pekarek Doehler & Pochon-Berger, 2015) used in formatting actions such as self-introduction and activity-explanation over the seven-week course. This dissertation presents a model for the design, development, and institutional implementation of a mobile AR game and expands the horizon of CA-informed game-based L2 learning and interactions in the digital wilds (Sauro & Zourou, 2019).