Digital Games in the L1 English Classroom: From Personal to Critical Literacies

• In Event: Gaming and Literacies: Implications for Equitable Futures

Abstract

Objectives
This presentation reviews qualitative case study research of digital games in English classrooms in countries where English is the primary language. The critical review investigates the potentialities of these new social, cultural and textual forms to identify how teachers have been using these new forms of meaning making. In so doing, the review explores the literate practices associated with the digital game English classroom, as well as the games selected and the forms of game play utilised.

Perspective(s)
A socio-cultural approach to literacy (Gee, 1996; Street, 1995) is employed as a theoretical lens with which to explore the activity reported in the case studies. Such an approach moves thinking away from digital games as medium and the overly optimistic rhetoric that often accompanies discourses of digital game based learning. Thus, the review focuses attention on the specific social and cultural literacy practices that emerge when games are enacted in the English classroom for play and study.

Methods and Data Sources
Guided by the research question, “What do studies of learning about digital games in the L1 English classroom reveal about the literate practices in these contexts?,” I conducted a systematic critical review (Grant & Booth, 2009) of qualitative research in order to evaluate accomplishments and identify gaps and silences. Four inclusion/exclusion criteria were applied to facilitate the search. Papers were excluded if:
1. They reported research not conducted in a formal learning environment, such as a classroom.
2. The formal learning context did not resemble the characteristics and imperatives of L1 English education.
3. They did not establish some form of pedagogical intervention.
4. The study did not have a sustained focus on a digital game or games, or where no gameplay took place.
After the application of this criteria, 16 papers (from 2003-2021) were identified for analysis.

Findings
Findings were organised into categories of related literacy practices, each category associated with one of four orientations to English, namely: personal growth literacies, skills literacies, critical literacies, and cultural heritage literacies. This presentation will focus on results related to personal growth literacies and critical literacies. I will argue that the desire to increase engagement, connect with the lifeworlds of students, and legitimise their out-of-school gaming literacies should not detract from the need to develop critical digital game literacies.

Scholarly Significance
The use of digital games in English Education contexts remains a novel exercise (Nash & Brady, 2021). This critical review demonstrates that while digital game literacies have much to offer the L1 English learner, more studies that centre digital games for play and study, and more detailed description and analysis of the methods employed to teach these texts is needed.

Author

• Alex Bacalja, The University of Melbourne
  Presenting Author