• Login
    View Item 
    •   Research Bank Home
    • Study Areas
    • Education
    • Education Journal Articles
    • View Item
    •   Research Bank Home
    • Study Areas
    • Education
    • Education Journal Articles
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Can I say something? The effects of digital game play on willingness to communicate.

    Reinders, Hayo; Wattana, Sorada

    Thumbnail
    Share
    View fulltext online
    Can I say something - The effects of digital game play on willingness to communicate.pdf (720.3Kb)
    Date
    2014-06-01
    Citation:
    Reinders, H., and Wattana, S. (2014). Can I say something? The effects of digital game play on willingness to communicate. Language Learning & Technology, 18(2), p.101-123
    Permanent link to Research Bank record:
    https://hdl.handle.net/10652/2962
    Abstract
    This paper reports on a study into the effects of digital game play on learners’ Willingness to Communicate (WTC), or individuals’ “readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using a L2” (MacIntyre, Dörnyei, Clément, & Noels, 1998, p. 547). Thirty Thai learners of English as a foreign language enrolled in a University language course completed six 90–minute lessons playing Ragnarok Online, a popular online role–playing game. The game had been installed on a private server and was thus only available to participants in the study. We modified the game to include special instructions, or quests (missions that players are assigned to accomplish in order to get items and progress throughout the game), designed to encourage collaboration and communication. To gauge participants’ WTC, a series of questionnaires was designed, adapted from MacIntyre et al’s (2001) WTC scale and previous studies on language and communication anxiety (Horwitz, Horwitz, & Cope, 1986; McCroskey & Richmond, 1982) and perceived competence (Compton, 2004; MacIntyre & Charos, 1996). These asked respondents about their (own perceptions of their) willingness to use English, as well as their confidence, anxiety, and perceived communicative competence in communicating in English. The questionnaires were administered at the start of the course, and again after six gaming sessions. Results on the first set of questionnaires showed that students had low confidence, high anxiety, low perceived competence, and low WTC. The second set of results showed a marked and significant improvement, with participants feeling more confident, less anxious, more competent, and more willing to communicate. We argue that the careful construction of tasks that draw on the affordances of games can have a positive effect on the language learning process.
    Keywords:
    CALL (computer-assisted language learning), language play, second language acquisition (SLA), gaming
    ANZSRC Field of Research:
    130207 LOTE, ESL and TESOL Curriculum and Pedagogy (excl. Māori), 130306 Educational Technology and Computing
    Copyright Holder:
    © Hayo Reinders & Sorada Wattana
    Copyright Notice:
    Copyright © 2014,
    Available Online at:
    http://llt.msu.edu/issues/june2014/reinderswattana.html
    Rights:
    This digital work is protected by copyright. It may be consulted by you, provided you comply with the provisions of the Act and the following conditions of use: Any use you make of these documents or images must be for research or private study purposes only, and you may not make them available to any other person. You will recognise the author's and publishers rights and give due acknowledgement where appropriate.
    Metadata
    Show detailed record
    This item appears in
    • Education Journal Articles [233]

    Library home
    Send Feedback
    Research publications
    Unitec
    Moodle
    © Unitec Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West, Auckland 1142
     

     

    Usage

    Downloads, last 12 months
    264
     
     

    Usage Statistics

    For this itemFor the Research Bank

    Share

    About

    About Research BankResearch at UnitecContact us

    Help for authors  

    How to add researchOpen Access GuideVersions Toolkit

    Register for updates  

    LoginRegister

    Browse Research Bank  

    EverywhereAcademic study areasAuthorDateSubjectTitleType of researchSupervisorThis CollectionAuthorDateSubjectTitleType of researchSupervisor

    Library home
    Send Feedback
    Research publications
    Unitec
    Moodle
    © Unitec Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92025, Victoria Street West, Auckland 1142