Let's play a game while writing

Abstract

This is a design-based (Barab, 2014) research project with an ecological, dialogical, and distributed cognitive (EDD) (Linell, 2009; van Lier, 2004; Thibault, 2011) theories-driven design of learning environment enriched by an online pedagogical drama game. The games, Finding Jolin’s Way Home (first and third iteration) and God of Time (second iteration), were designed as part of the writing process. The purpose of this research is to study the relationships between the EDD framework, an Internet pedagogical drama game-supported second language writing (English) process, and the implementation of a ten-day course. The course was built on a flipped classroom concept in which adolescent Chinese participants read teacher-chosen articles about a socio-political topic before three-hour face-to-face sessions consisting of group discussion, a game session, and a timed-writing session. Three iterations of design and implementation were completed in July 2017, July 2018, and July 2019, respectively. A parallel comparison between the computer pedagogical drama-game engendered group discussions and group discussions guided by discussion questions showed that the former demonstrated students’ languaging behavior (Swain, 2009) in ways not found in the latter. Further findings show that first, second language writing pedagogies can be advanced by collaborating with gaming that is rooted in an ecological (van Lier, 2004) and dialogical approach (Linell, 2009) to language learning and use; second, students respond positively to such a language use-based, experience-oriented and process-focused second language writing course; and third, such a game-supported writing course is not only feasible in a large classroom, but also generates an authentic writing process that engages students in a series of languaging (Swain, 2006) activities including collaborative dialogue about socio-political issues embedded in the game and game quest planning which scaffolded critical thinking events such as formulating a clear point of view, evidence-finding, evidence explanation, and recognition of alternative points of view. Keywords: design-based research, pedagogical drama game, ecological linguistics, dialogical approach, distributed cognition, process writing,