Affect and willingness to communicate in digital game-based learning

TLDR

Digital games are increasingly studied for language learning because they are believed to motivate learners, reduce affective barriers, and promote interaction. This study aims to examine how learners experience game‑based learning, how gameplay shapes their self‑perceptions as learners, and how these factors may influence the success of such programs and teachers’ curricular decisions. Researchers followed five university students in a fifteen‑week game‑based program in Thailand, conducting six interviews per participant (30 interviews total) to assess the effect of gameplay on their willingness to communicate in English. Results indicated that gameplay lowered affective barriers and increased willingness to communicate, suggesting benefits for learners and informing future research and classroom practice.

Abstract

Abstract The possible benefits of digital games for language learning and teaching have received increasing interest in recent years. Games are said, amongst others, to be motivating, to lower affective barriers in learning, and to encourage foreign or second language (L2) interaction. But how do learners actually experience the use of games? What impact does gameplay have on students’ perceptions of themselves as learners, and how does this affect their learning practice? These questions are important as they are likely to influence the success of digital game-based language learning, and as a result the way teachers might integrate games into the curriculum. In this study we investigated the experiences of five students who had participated in a fifteen-week game-based learning program at a university in Thailand. We conducted six interviews with each of them (for a total of 30 interviews) to identify what impact gameplay had in particular on their willingness to communicate in English (MacIntyre, Dörnyei, Clément & Noels, 1998). The results showed that gameplay had a number of benefits for the participants in this study, in particular in terms of lowering their affective barriers to learning and increasing their willingness to communicate. We discuss the implications of these results in terms of further research and classroom practice.