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It was great to see many of you this summer at our conference, and we hope we can make this SIG something useful for you this coming year. If you have comments, questions, or ideas, if you would like to be removed from the monthly newsletter, or you think someone else would be interested in receiving it, please email jrobins3@gustavus.edu. Today in the newsletter:

• SIG Project Spotlight

• Conferenes

• Game Jams

• Articles

 

In the upcoming months and years, it is the hope that each week we can highlight some kind of game related project that someone in the CALICO Gaming SIG is working on. Please contact us if you have something you can share!

 

A project that I am working on at Gustavus Adolphus College with two of my student workers is a game called Innspekter Moris.In this game, set in the island nation of Mauritius, you play as an inspector who travels to numerous locations throughout the country, interviewing people on the street with the hope that you will be able to save the country from the threat of an ecological disaster. The pedagogical goal of the game is to help the player learn about Mauritius’s unique culture and history, and also help the learner develop linguistic skills in French, English, or Mauritian Kreol. 

 

This scene’s background image is modeled from Marie Reine de la Paix: GPS My City (size reduction apparent from original).
Original image from Marie Reine de la Paix by Carrotmadman6. July 11, 2006. (CC-BY 2.0)

 

D. Melanie Kistnasamy is my student worker from Mauritius, and has the primary responsibility for writing scripts and dealing with cultural matters. Sanjeeda Shutrishna is my student artist, and my role is design and development. We are modeling background art from images we have taken ourselves, received permission to use, or which fall under some other licencing. We are also working with some musicians in Mauritius to create background audio tracks matching each of the different locations. 

 

This has been an interesting project so far, and it has been fun to learn a bit more about Mauritius. We have also completed a couple of smaller projects related to Mauritius, if you are interested in playing them. Les villes cachées de L’île Maurice is a short game aimed at beginning French learners, which teaches geography and location words. Journée d’un travailleur engagé (French) and Lazourne enn travayer angaze (Kreol) are authorized translations of Journey of an Indentured Laborer an interesting project “designed to give players a snapshot of what life might have been like for an South Asian indentured laborers during the nineteenth century.”

 

 

 

Game Jams are short, friendly contests to develop a game within a given amount of time, often requiring participants to adhere to certain themes or limitations. Consider participating in a Game Jam to practice your development skills, or often you can also take part in these by playing submitted games and judging, even if you don’t create a game yourself (also a great task for language learning students!). There are a wealth of ongoing game jams which are primarily in English (See itch.io/jams), but there are also jams focusing on other languages. Below are some which are upcoming. If you are aware of others (especially in additional languages), please let us know!

 

 

Here are some recent articles which you might be interested in reading:

 

Dixon, D. H., & Christison, M. (2021). L2 Gamers’ Use of Learning and Communication Strategies in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs): An Analysis of L2 Interaction in Virtual Online Environments. In CALL Theory Applications for Online TESOL Education (pp. 296-321). IGI Global.

 

Hemminki, A. (2021). Finnish upper-secondary school students’ perspectives on the benefits of gaming for their English proficiency.

 

Johnson, E., & Vitanova, G. (2021, May). Agency and Gaming in Language Learning. In Work and Labor in World Languages, Literatures, and Film: Selected Proceedings of the 24th Southeast Conference on Languages, Literatures, and Film (p. 71). BrownWalker Press.

 

Li, K., Peterson, M., & Wang, Q. (2021). Using Community of Inquiry to Scaffold Language Learning in Out-of-School Gaming: A Case Study. International Journal of Game-Based Learning (IJGBL), 11(1), 31-52.

 

Lin, C. Y., & Guo, Y. H. (2021). Enhancing EFL Adolescent Learners’ Vocabulary Acquisition via Online Single Player Role-Play Games. Language Literacy: Journal of Linguistics, Literature, and Language Teaching, 5(1), 10-22.

 

Peterson, M., Yamazaki, K., & Thomas, M. (Eds.). (2021). Digital Games and Language Learning: Theory, Development and Implementation. Bloomsbury Publishing.

 

Reinhardt, J. (2021). Not all MMOGs are created equal: A design-informed approach to the study of L2 learning in multiplayer online games. Digital Games and Language Learning: Theory, Development and Implementation, 69.