The Handbook of Informal Language Learning

7Gaming and Informal Language Learning

STEPHANIE W.P. KNIGHT LINDSAY MAREAN AND JULIE M. SYKES

Introduction

What is easily observed, categorized, and manipulated is manageable. The seduction of this potential to control is omnipresent in formal language‐learning contexts. Language, in all of its messy, complex manifestations, is, on the surface, most easily taught and assessed when deconstructed into discrete grammar points and targeted vocabulary words. Unfortunately, this described tendency toward regimented and formalized language learning has very real parallels with a greater, general tendency to characterize learning and play as mutually exclusive terms. A key variable to understanding the prevalence of this false dichotomy is to consider the aforementioned seduction of control and the centrality of player‐directedness in (most) gameplay in concert. Academy‐directed experiences tend to be characterized by their specificity of desired outcomes and favor behaviors that are directed by actors other than the learner, irrespective of learner goals or the power of learners to create diverse, situated meanings based on their personal contexts (though some contemporary approaches such as that advocated by the International Baccalaureate operate on a learner‐centered paradigm). By contrast, gameplay, even with the reality of designer influence on behavior, has the potential to facilitate a high degree of self‐motivated exploration and learner‐directedness (e.g. DeVane and ...