Event Title

ELLE, The EndLess LEarner Videogame: An Interdisciplinary Digital Humanities Collaboration

Presenter Information

Amy Giroux, University of Central Florida
Emily Johnson, University of Central Florida
Don Merritt, University of Central Florida
Gergana Vitanova, University of Central Florida
Sandra Sousa

Location

CB1-308

Start Date

4-11-2017 10:00 AM

End Date

4-11-2017 11:00 AM

Description

https://youtu.be/6PNCc2i-xy8

Learning a new language is difficult and time-consuming. This panel discussion will consist of descriptions of the unique research interests and perspectives from each member of the five person interdisciplinary team working to design a second-language acquisition (SLA) videogame, ELLE: The EndLess LEarner.

The videogame's style is an "endless runner," which means that the player's avatar is continuously in motion, "running" through the game's virtual world without being able to stop, (e.g. Temple Run 2). This type of game limits player autonomy, even dictating the speed of motion, limiting player control to turning the avatar left or right, jumping, and ducking. The resulting fast pace of this game style requires rapid responses which can aid in the engagement and motivation of players, especially in a game intended for vocabulary practice, such as ELLE.

The design of ELLE is grounded in the scholarship of language learning theories and evidence-based pedagogical methods. The videogame is the center of a variety of studies being planned to increase understanding of individual components that influence SLA. This game's interchangeable components allow the team to quantify the effects of different game features and player actions.

The central question guiding our project is: How can a videogame be best designed to effectively enhance student second language acquisition? However, each of us considers this question through unique lenses and fields of scholarship within the digital humanities.

• Contact Zones (Giroux): Amy's research involves the contact zones (interfaces) between people, artifacts, and computers such as the infrastructure necessary for collaborative work/gamespace.
• Serious Game Design (Johnson): A former middle school teacher working in a Games Research Lab, Emily approaches this project with an interest in researching best practices for educational games, engagement and motivation pedagogy, and self-regulated learning.
• Interfaces and Accessibility (Merritt): Don's research focuses on the intersections of interface, game, and accessible design. The endless-runner approach to a language acquisition aid presents interesting opportunities for investigating these intersections.
• Second Language Acquisition (Vitanova): Gergana approaches this project from the perspective of second language acquisition, outlining key theoretical considerations. Some of these were traditional, for instance, the acquisition of vocabulary. The creation of the game has also been guided by more recent, socio-cognitive concepts. As a second-language scholar and a trainer of L2 teachers, Gergana's role is to situate ELLE within the current context of this field.
• Modern Languages (Sousa): Sandra is an Assistant Professor of Portuguese. After 16 years of teaching the language, she is interested in observing and researching on how a videogame will improve second language acquisition. ELLE will be implemented in her Portuguese language classes.

For this full panel, we intend for each of the five contributors to the project to speak, briefly describing our unique research interests as they pertain to ELLE; we wish to leave 5-10 minutes for discussion and questions.