No abstract

This systematic review presents a definition for digital games within the second/foreign language (L2) learning research field. This definition is used to identify games used in research in the last five years (2012-2017). Forty-nine studies were identified and then summarized by type of research, game genre employed, age, and size of sample populations, and focus of research (vocabulary acquisition, student perspectives, etc.). Next, the research is synthesized by the L2 aspects investigated in each study. Finally, in the discussion section the L2 gaming research field is evaluated and suggestions for future endeavors are provided.

Our work is situated in research on Computer Science (CS) learning in informal learning environments and literature on the factors that influence girls to enter CS. In this article, we outline design choices around the creation of a summer programming camp for middle school youth. In addition, we describe a near-peer mentoring model we used that was influenced by Bandura's self-efficacy theory. The purpose of this article, apart from promoting transparency of program design, was to evaluate the effectiveness of our camp design in terms of increasing youths’ interest, self-efficacy beliefs, and perceptions of parental support. We found significant gains for all three of these concepts. Additionally, we make connections between our design choices (e.g., videos, peer support, mentor support) and the affective gains by thematically analyzing interview data concerning the outcomes found in our camps.

The Challenge Research on game use in language learning is narrowly focused on game design and games as stand-alone learning environments. Few studies have investigated the role and impact of teachers in this field. Thus, we explore why teachers have been left out, why they are needed, and what teaching with games looks like.

In this study, we present an educational board game designed to promote both mathematics and Chinese language learning. We use text‐mining techniques to analyze dialog by 40 students, in six groups playing a board game in a dual language immersion context. Our findings provide evidence to support past claims and arguments that play and specifically play within board games can provide a learning environment in which students can experiment with concepts and language without fear of failure. In our study, we not only found that learners were willing and excited to use their L2 skills within the context of the game but also that the board game promoted peer learning, which subsequently provided support for both math and language development.