The Effects of Digital Game Play on Second Language Interaction

Introduction

Digital games have been shown to be able to make contributions to learning in various domains (for a review, see Hainey, Connolly, Stansfield, & Boyle, 2011; Kirriemuir & McFarlane, 2004; Mitchell & Savill-Smith, 2004; Randel, Morris, Wetzel, & Whitehill, 1992). Also in the area of language learning and teaching, the potential of games is starting to be explored. Games have been shown to motivate students (Anyaegbu, Ting, & Li, 2012; Liu & Chu, 2010), to encourage greater time-on-task (Gee, 2007) and to increase learners’ Willingness to Communicate (WTC) (Reinders & Wattana, 2012, 2014b). What has not been established conclusively, however, is if playing games leads to more interaction in the target language. Interaction has been argued to play a crucial role in second language acquisition (SLA) (Long, 1981) and it is therefore important to identify environments conducive to L2 (second language) production. Below, we will briefly discuss the role of interaction in L2 acquisition before looking at previous research into the use of digital games for language learning purposes.