What Videogames Have to Teach Us (Still) about Subject English

This paper reports on a participatory action research project which used videogames as the central texts for play and study in a middle-years English classroom in Australia. Ongoing questions about the nature of subject English have often focused on the discipline's ability to accommodate twent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnglish in Australia Vol. 53; no. 3; pp. 51 - 63
Main Author Bacalja, Alexander
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Australian Association for the Teaching of English 01.01.2018
Subjects
Educational Games
English Instruction
Foreign Countries
Interaction
Interactive Video
Learner Engagement
Middle School Students
Prior Learning
Secondary School Students
Story Telling
Teaching Methods
Technology Uses in Education
Video Games
Australia
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Summary:This paper reports on a participatory action research project which used videogames as the central texts for play and study in a middle-years English classroom in Australia. Ongoing questions about the nature of subject English have often focused on the discipline's ability to accommodate twenty-first century literacies. Videogames, as increasingly popular and digital forms of texts, are often praised for their ability to engage students (Gee, 2003), yet less is understood about the pedagogies necessary to enable the rigorous study of these texts in classroom contexts. This study found while that existing conceptual and pedagogic models of subject English can be adopted and adapted to suit the unique affordances of this text type, issues associated with play and interactivity complicate the use of videogames in the classroom. It offers a new contribution to the evolving field of study associated with games as texts (Beavis, Dezuanni, & O'Mara, 2017). The study has implications for those seeking to engage more closely with students' textual worlds but unsure of how to negotiate videogames' intrinsic textual features.
ISSN:0155-2147