World of Wordcraft: Foreign language grammar and composition taught as a term-long role-playing game

Abstract

This article outlines an innovative approach to the instruction of foreign languages: a term-long role-playing game in the style of tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Students adopt personas, avatars, or “player characters” and take them through adventures, exploration, puzzles, and fights with monsters, all of which are tied to specific language-acquisition exercises and practice. I detail at length my specific implementation in an advanced undergraduate Latin prose composition course at Wake Forest University and its overall successful results. I also offer advice, cautions, and additional resources for both small-scale and large-scale implementations of the role-playing game pedagogical methodology.

Use of Digital Games in Writing Education: An Action Research on Gamification

“…A number of studies (Cruaud, 2016;Figueroa Flores, 2015;Huner, 2018;Gellar-Goad, 2015;Karatekin, 2017;Rachels & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2018) related to the relationship between language arts and digital gamification generally centered on second language education. Other studies on the digital gamification of language arts in Turkey include those by Guasch, Espasa, Alvarez, and Kirschner (2013) and by Cook, Gremo, and Morgan (2017).…”

“…In her work, she has taken gamification only from the point of vocabulary. Studies on the relationship between language arts and gamification have been determined to be generally related to second language education (Cruaud, 2016;Figueroa Flores, 2015;Gellar-Goad, 2015;Huner, 2018;Karatekin, 2017;Rachels & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2018). Guasch et al (2013) and Cook, Gremo, and Morgan (2017) found gamification to be associated with mother tongue education.…”