Digital Play: Computer Games and Language Aims

Digital Play is a pioneering book on the use of computer games in language teaching, in which the authors share their expertise in training teachers in innovative classroom practice with their excitement for teaching with technology. It offers: guidance on taking on the challenge of the digital revolution; insight into how learners engage with gaming outside the classroom; and advice and activities for effectively bringing the world of gaming inside the classroom. Digital Play contains three distinctive parts which focus in turn on theory, practice and development: Part A examines the role of computer games in society, in education in general and in language teaching in particular, dismissing stereotypes and suggesting ways of implementing games with language learners. Part B consists of a bank of step-by-step activities showing how to use digital play in the classroom. Activities cover different possible classroom scenarios — from no available technology, through one computer and a projector to multiple computers — and they all have the common aim of helping learners improve their knowledge and use of the foreign language, covering all four language skills. Part C shows the teacher how to integrate digital play activities into the wider environment of the syllabus and the school, and suggests ways of developing personally and professionally as teachers of the 21st century.