ReCALL Journal Special Issue: Call for Papers

Digital games for language learning: challenges and opportunities

Submission deadline: 30 June 2011 Publication date: September 2012

Guest editors

Steven L. Thorne, Portland State University, USA; and University of Groningen, The Netherlands stevenlthorne@gmail.com

Frederik Cornillie, K.U.Leuven Campus Kortrijk, Belgium frederik.cornillie@kuleuven-kortrijk.be

Piet Desmet, K.U.Leuven & K.U.Leuven Campus Kortrijk, Belgium piet.desmet@kuleuven-kortrijk.be

This special issue of ReCALL intends to address key issues in digital game-based language learning. In recent years, digital gaming environments have become increasingly popular in contexts whichare not commonly associated with recreation and entertainment. In museums, management training, the military, and much more slowly, in formal educational settings, the emergence of games is evoking a shift away from models of learning based on information delivery toward theories of human development rooted in experiential problem solving, direct participation, and complex forms of collaboration. Games are no longer populated by demographically narrow audiences, but have become rich digital environments within which individuals from diverse social strata give expression to their identities, form new ones, and engage in plurilingual and pluricultural mediated social activity. All of this has been accompanied by a gradual diversification of games themselves.

It is crucial to study these evolutions in light of issues high on the current research agenda of CALL, such as collaborative learning and functional approaches to language learning and teaching. This warrants additional research, both theoretical and applied, as to how serious and recreational games can be interpreted and realized in the context of language learning.

Topics relevant to the special issue may include, but are not limited to:

theoretical considerations pertaining to serious gaming for language learning;
instructional design of digital games for language learning;
empirical studies on the effectiveness of serious games;
task-based language teaching and gaming; cooperative learning and socio-constructivist approaches to gaming;
empirical studies of learner language in massively multiplayer online games;
implementation of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games in classrooms;
adaptation of COTS games for language learning; gaming and ICALL;
motivation and gaming;
learners’ perceptions of games;
learning styles and gaming;
structured play in virtual worlds.

Papers, to a maximum of 7000 words, should be submitted electronically to June Thompson, d.j.thompson@hull.ac.uk no later than 30 June 2011. Please use the published ReCALL guidelines at http://www.eurocall-languages.org/recall/contribnotes.html when preparing your paper.

ReCALL is the journal of EUROCALL, an international journal published by Cambridge University Press and listed in the major abstracting and indexing services.