Realizing multiple literacies through game-enhanced pedagogies: Designing learning across discourse levels

Abstract

One of the primary struggles for scholars and practitioners of instructed foreign languages today is how to best teach language as discourse in all its complexity. Digital games, as massively semiotic ecologies, arguably offer a unique opportunity for language learners to experience that complexity in action. This article provides a model for teaching language as discourse in action through digital games, as a means of presenting language learners with opportunities to experience the complexity of text, genre and discourse. The model integrates three levels of discourse essential to digital gaming: (1) the designs of the games, (2) the interactions between gamers, both those that take part in the gaming platform (such as in-game chats) and those between participants in the classroom and (3) social discourses about gaming.