Digital Tools, Digital Games, and Communication - Dr. Julie Sykes
Well. Thank you all for, turning outs Friday afternoon. We, have the room until five o'clock but, you, don't have to speak Julie until, five o'clock just, what you know okay. So Julie Sykes let me introduce you quickly to Julie and then she's going to take it away and show you all the great stuff that they're doing at the University, of Oregon at, castle's Julie. Sikes earned her PhD from the University, of Minnesota with a focus on applied linguistics and, second language acquisition, her. Research focuses on, the use of digital, technologies. For language acquisition with, a specific focus on inter. Language pragmatic development, in intercultural, competence. She's. Taught courses on second language teaching and learning methodology. And research language. Learning and technology Hispanic, linguistics, and interlanguage. Pragmatic, development. Julie's. Experience, includes the design. Implementation and, evaluation of, online immersive, spaces, and the. Creation of place-based, augmented, reality mobile. Games to engage learners in a variety of non institutional. Context, and you're going to be talking about some of those today, right. She's. Published very various, articles on. Computer. Assisted language learning related, topics including, synchronous, computer, mediated communication and. Pragmatic, development, gaming. And computer. Assisted language learning and lexical. Acquisition. In digitally, mediated environments. She, serves as the, University, of Oregon scholar, in residence and, also holds a faculty appointment in the Department. Of linguistics. Julie. Sikes give her a big hand. Thank. You Carl. For that nice introduction. Um I am, gonna talk about lots, of these things kind, of all mixed together and remix together it's a very long title. Maybe. Intentionally maybe unintentionally. Just sort of how this interdisciplinary. Work goes. Before. I begin though anyone, who tells you we do this kind of work alone, is wrong I think. Academia, we always think of as being this sort of isolated, solitary, space that's not actually the case especially when, we start talking about digital technologies. And games. And these big projects, that were working on so a special, thank you to Carl, and his team and to Natalie and Sarah and Betsy for bringing me here and, to Dale I've, known Dale since I was first starting, as an ma studentís, she's like keep going keep. Going it's gonna be great, and. She still talked to me after I didn't come to UT for grad school which I really appreciated, so thank. You, for that as well also my tema home the castle's team we. Have 12, of us who work where sister LRC, two coral here at Texas, and, three, of my closest, collaborators, on many of the games we're gonna talk about today Chris Holden at the University of New Mexico, Peter Moore who built my very first ever 3d. Game he's. At the University of Minnesota and Steve Lauren and so just an acknowledgement, that this work is a collective. Body of the kind of work we're doing and hopefully that all of us keep doing it's, part of the open education, space right is learning to collaborate not only, on the kinds of things we do but the thinking that we do as well. I'm. Not going to talk to hours I promise you that the goal is maybe an hour and then lots of time for discussion questions. Interaction. As we need it um the talk really has three goals in three parts as we go through the. First is to, explore. Discourse, and language as used, by the communities, in. Which we live, I'm a big part of that is the digital world which is where I'm gonna focus and so I want, us to just get a sense of while this, is so important, and why it's so complicated digital, isn't the only place these things are happening but they're really nice. Salient. Clear, place, to think about them we can see them happening in real time which is really fun. We're. Also going to consider, an operationalized. Approach, to, - pragmatic, development, that is hopefully, more reflective, of this comprehensive, set, of skills learners need moving. Beyond the idea that pragmatics, is a set of strategies or functions we put in different orders and make them work it's something bigger and more complicated. Or comprehensive, than that and then, we're. Going to talk about utilizing.
Technological. Innovation, to make this. Systemic, right, if we actually could scale, innovation. In the ways that we're doing what would that look like and how can we do that digital. Tools being sort, of the primary. Space, that. Allows us to do things on the backend we can't do in face-to-face environments. And if we think of those digital tools in that way we can sort of expand, and increase the opportunities. To do that kind of work so sound, good everyone, on board that's kind of the journey we're gonna take today anyway. So. Starting, with the idea about digital. Language in digital discourse, the, numbers here aren't necessarily. Important. Other, than looking, at the increased. And prolific. Use of, Internet users social. Media, users, unique, mobile users, in other words the number of mobile of accounts, rate is increasing. Active. Mobile. Social. Users. 30%. Right. Critical. To thinking about this we think of it as oh I just wish people would get off their phones and talk to people. What. Is happening, here. What's. Actually happening. Is people are, talking, to people and they're so grossly, engaged. With talking to people they're unable to look up so. We have to think about how those be a good bad I'm not saying either one is good or bad but, it's inaccurate. To express the idea that they're not talking to people they, are not interacting, face-to-face, with people they are engaging, with often, people, in different, ways in those spaces and it's part of understanding. Language and the things that we need to do, the. Other thing I want to show you is active users, of these global social, platforms, Facebook. Being at the top I bet that's gone down actually in. The last three weeks. The. Point being these are high stakes environments. Worth billions and billions of dollars the, behaviors, that are happening in Twitter since the presidential, election, have skyrocketed the, stocks of that company for a reason right, all of a sudden people are paying attention good, or bad again, I want to be cautious not to place value, over. Positively. On the technological space, or. Undervalue. It that's, the trick it's a neutral space that we have to try to figure out and try to dig into and we'll get to language learning here in a minute I promise. Florence, Morrow and Smith really accurately, point out I think that the Internet has qualitatively. Transformed. Everyday, communication, and actually. Constitutes. A most of multiplicity. Of language contact zones really unprecedented in human history on. Top, of that I would add we. Have access. To them, unlike. Language, contact, zones where we fly to borders, and we look at what's happening and we collect field data we, can look at tons and tons of, data really. Really quickly, just. To make this point and I hope I've pulled some examples, you're familiar with and some many of you are probably like what the heck is she talking, about um that's exactly the point here one.
Is Thinking of facebooking. Right. How many of you have used facebooking. As a verb. Right. Ten, years ago that didn't even exist as a word right. Now it is inherent, part of digital, and non-digital. Discourse. Facebook doesn't just happen in Facebook, Facebook. Happens everywhere even if you're saying I'm no longer gonna use Facebook, right. Hashtags. I. Would. Argue we're not quite done with the analysis, but I would argue hashtags, are the number one marker of pragmatic, behavior, and electronic, discourse, that we've seen it's the way we mark socio, pragmatics, it's the way we mark context, in different backgrounds, it's the way people categorize. Themselves with other groups of people. Some. Pretty salient, hashtags, we've seen recently with really, high stakes consequences. Things like delete Facebook, the, me2 movement, right. There all the this is just two examples of, all these things that are happening but then also we have really neutral, hashtags. Mark context, that do different things right. The change and sort of give us more, insight into the actual text, or the actual image that's happening, finally. Um thinking. About the emoji, movie is anyone seen the emoji movie out to small kids so I've seen it for a reason um not because I was dying to watch the emoji movie um, anyone, know what it's about you've seen it what's it about. Yeah. My, kid right so, essentially, it's about this man guy, right. He's a man emoji. And emojis are only supposed to have one expression, and man, has. Tons of expressions, and he could change his expressions, all the time so, he is viewed as a malfunction. And the entire. Movie. Is about living, in the world of this phone of this, one particular, human being and the entire ecosystem of that telephone the. Cloud all the apps they go through how it gets deleted and they have essentially, personified. Technological. Innovation, of the last 10 years if. You, are not familiar with these things it makes, absolutely. No sense, none whatsoever, right. It's, a context. That is worth talking, about in that people are so, familiar more specifically, four to twelve year olds are, familiar. Enough with these kind of spaces that it's becoming, ubiquitous, as part of their life. Finally. To, make the point that humans. Change technology, yes technology, of course changes humans right, absolutely.
The Other reality is we make lots of choices to ensure that the discursive, behaviors, we like in our context, exist, dot. Dot dot, it's. My favorite, one my. Favorite innovation, in technology why, anyone know. Someone. Who studies pragmatics, it cares a lot about, how people interact. Why. Do I like it what, does that that that mean anyone, know what I'm talking about when you're texting right. Somebody's. Writing there's someone, on the other end do I interrupt, their turn do I not interrupt, their turn it, was added, because people. Like turn-taking, mechanisms. We can show turn taking patterns, in all kinds of discursive situations. Including. Digital environments. Of which, learners, to understand. Just, to give you a little, bit of comic, relief we'll, see how this goes I'm. Not going to show you the whole thing there's. A little bit of profanity, and I don't need to cause, that video, anyway but, I do want to show you this because I think it's a really interesting. Commentary. On where we are. The, point being right, fundamentally. Changing. Social, behavior, right. Ten years ago five years ago, no one would have been too concerned right now it's, like wow that's good maybe we still aren't I don't know but, the point is it's for some it's actually, a fundamental shift and, the kinds of things that are happening very good all right um, not all of its good I this is one of my favorite articles out of the New York Times if you haven't read it everyone, know what Alexa, is the, stand-up speaker, sort of real-time AI goes, into everyone's homes and does really cool things for you. Co-parenting. With Alexa, what. Does that look like I can, attest to it Alexa has a personality, in our house she's, not gonna exist very long she she even has a name and agender my, kids require, you to be polite with Alexa, so if you come into the house my dad was there and he's like Alexa turn on the music and Lily goes you need to say please dad, write, all these, kinds of things this article, goes on to talk about what, does this mean for the personification, of, machines and technology again not necessarily, good, not. Necessarily, bad we don't actually know, I mean we see lots of research on digital distraction, we see lots of research on our inability, to calm down and on focus, that's really, important, we have to pay attention to that too. Therefore. When. Thinking, about language and this multiplicity. Of complications. Around how human, interaction. Happens. Pragmatics. Comes right back to the core right. Pragmatics. Being. The. Way we, communicate meaning. With each other. It. Means it doesn't actually matter what your structure, looks like if you're unable to sort, of manipulate it by context, it means we have to shape, and adapt and move and do all kinds of things on the fly, also, not something we see in.
Typical. Language curricula. Let's. Take for example this, sorry one sec. All. Right take, the utterance let's grab a cup of coffee sometime. Let's. Grab a cup of coffee sometime I am. At a new, reception. We've just met for the first time we're chatting, and I say hey let's grab a cup of coffee how, many of you think I have full and of going to coffee with you within the next two weeks. How. Many of you are like oh yes. She's just saying getting out of the conversation, maybe. Right. I mean that's what it is mostly. Most often, used as a pre closer right. In situations, of meeting someone new it's a pre closer that we used to end up great, grammars. Fine I actually caught him colloquial, in the right context, the meaning causes. All kinds of, miscommunication. Learners. Of English come to the United States they get all these invitations. That aren't actually invitation so they think, American, students are shallow and off for all these sort of unintended. Things. Americans. Are so why are they so clingy why are they following me everywhere, what's going on Julie the reality is it's just a mismatch in how that invitation occurred. Even. More so things as simple as words right coffee. In this case coffee might mean a coke it might mean a water it might mean a tea it, might mean all kinds of things but in every single language textbook, what do we see coffee. A. Picture. That looks like that right. So we have to think of language more differently, even, more, so, when. We get to social media this is a really old one there, are lots of new ones you can google it social media explained, you'll see oh this is the original and I like the original the best so you can look at the newest version some of these don't even exist anymore. The. Idea being they. Demonstrate. The, fundamentally. Distinct. Idea, of, digital. Context, pragmatics. Is at the heart of what is going on here, right. Twitter. I'm eating a doughnut hashtag. Doughnut, right, I like donuts this is where I eat donuts there's all kinds, of information encoded, in this language it, is, not enough, to say hey, use social media well. What social media what kind of social media what's, going on what do you mean vlog put what what so. The point is we. Can never actually, teach learners all of those things I could. Never say do this on Facebook do this on Twitter do this on snapchat which I don't use and don't understand, do this on Twitter which I actually try to avoid do this on all right it's an impossible, feat, for a language, teacher. Teach everything now, on top of that it's impossible to teach you everything that has nothing to do with digital discourse, as well language. Variety. Individual. Choices, personalities. Preferences. So. Our goal has to be to get at skills dispositions and. Behaviors, that, enable. Learners to do this kind of work with language, themselves. Right. They have, to, get the skills that they need to deal with meaning right fundamental. Canonical. Definition, of pragmatics, the. Way meaning, is understood, and the way meaning, is communicated. Between a group of speakers, right. Intended. Assumptions. Force what, happens, with all of these pieces and we do that kind, of in two ways talking, about functions, understanding, is an invitation or is it a pre closing, understanding. How you might accomplish certain things with language but also a set, of skills, and strategies, around that from. Another perspective Leo Van Leer cause.
This The ecological. Or systemic approach, right extending. Sort of our understanding of pragmatics, to include, things, about. Context. About emergent. Patterns that are always changing. The needs who adapt consistently. To changing, conditions which. Happens, all, the, time the. Variability, that is no longer a nuisance, but actually a sign of vitality, in a culture I mean I think that's one of the things about Leo's work that was so interesting is it said pay, attention when. Something, is living and alive it's always changing, and if we don't teach our language students, to do that we're, doing them a certain disservice, as multilingual. Participants. In that society. That. Being said, we. Have a little bit of a problem and. It's a problem that, we've been working on for a long time right, I wish I could say I got to do Dale has been doing it much longer than I have Carl right this kind of work about how do we do this in formal instructional. Contexts how. Do we actually say, I care. More, about your ability, to interact in the world then I care about your ability, to use a preposition correctly. Because. Although I do care, about your accuracy eventually. Because it's the only way to do meaning I need. You to pay a ten first. Why. Is it so difficult right, and happy, to share any of these references, this is a very subset, of this immense, language, variety, personality. Individual. Perceptions. Just about the world right. Some, people prefer a flatter effect than other people, many. People like truly calm, down. Right. That is a preference, about how we engage, in things we're excited about our things we're not excited about, it's. Always, dynamic and co-constructed. There are lots of moments when you stop and you say I'm. Really sorry I didn't really mean it like that I can tell it upset you can, we start over rewind. Right. But, if we're always chalking, it up to although. I might have not gotten the right word right, that's, a different, thing when we talk about language learners and we talked about multilingualism. In particular. In. Order to attack, all these problems, we've looked at a number of different things one is a model. Around how we do this and that is observing, analyzing and extending. The. Goal being first you get learners to just pay attention I want, you to look at how this invitation sequence. Works do you notice that in Spanish they insist at least three times almost, across the board most, varieties, I'm gonna say most I'll never say every most, varieties, of Spanish insist, at least more than once but in most cases it's three times hey you want to come to this thing no, I really can't no you really have to come no I can't, no no really without you it's not gonna be the same and as. You refuse each time what do you have to do anyone, know. Your. Quiz your pragmatics, quiz of the day what. More. Evidence that you can't go or, you. Soften. Your refusal first it's like no no I have to work I'm really really sorry I'd love to but no, no no you have to be there well maybe I could try but really this project, is really important and lots. Of times not always most, often by the end it's like okay okay I'll try really hard. The. I'll try, really hard means. What, No. Right. You're, not going but what happens to a learner an English speaker who's a learner, Spanish what happens. All. Of a sudden they're like they're. Coming they said they'd really try and no one shows up and what, write, the meaning, and the intention, matter, right. Perfect structures, without that understanding, of meaning doesn't do that so getting learners to pay attention to those kinds of behaviors my, students, always say I hate, it and I'm like what they're. Like once you see it you can't stop seeing, it and, it is true right once you start thinking about language in that way it, becomes almost impossible to be like oh they.
Might Not actually be mad maybe we just didn't do that right right. Like maybe we have different ideas about what happened in this space oh now. I have to actually think about it all. Right. It, doesn't, mean we don't get, to be mad it means we get to decide when and how and we can use language though most effectively, in those places then. We have them analyze and. Then. Extend, that to the world in which they live right analysis, means I want you to pull this apart it. Can go directly. Side-by-side. With. The kinds of activities we do in language classrooms, anyway. Right. We, can fill in creating sequences, and we can take two, extra, minutes to put those greeting sequences. On a continue, of who you'd use them with, we. Can talk. About past, let's. See we can talk about. Obligations. In the future and instead, of just looking at the utterances, and the structure, for creating those obligations, we, can match an obligation, with its appropriate, context, I'd, really like to but right it's a mitigator, most often, it counts, as a mitigator, and, so, doing. These kinds of intentional, tiny, little tweaks gets us started, right, those. Are the kinds of things we think about in those models. So. What, we've done is we've actually intentionally. Said, okay we know about this mono we know these are the things that are tricky we. Also know that digital. Games specifically. And also other digital, technologies, enable, us to overcome, those, really really difficult barriers. To pragmatic, instruction, for example. Think about individual, personality. Choices, one of these many difficulties, I can. Actually give. An individual, experience. To a user in a. Game that's systemic, so as a player, I go, in as me or my avatar, my character I encounter. That digital world we're talking about this. One here cricket lioness is an old-school one we, can actually encounter. This digital, world as ourselves, based on our personality, is looking at what we're interested in while, also systematically, building, in the kinds of pragmatic, behavior, we want in this case it was requests, and apologies, you, got to mess around instead. Of me saying I need you to request like this and apologize, like this in Spanish it says try, it out here's. What we know more generally.
Here's. What we know more generally. And. Here's. What you can do if you want to mess around you, break a glass with a vendor in the market you can choose how to repair, that if you, do it well the vendor get is happy if you do it poorly the vendor is mad but it's not me as a teacher saying do this do that do that well that's just one small example happy, to talk more about that, not necessarily, the focus here we. Do it with mobile, games some interior and EcoPOD are two games built on mobile devices that actually engage you out into the neighborhood, with, mentira you go out you're part of one of four families, you have Clues you have to uncover in order to solve a murder mystery, the, better you are at pragmatics, the better clues you get so. Each family has a very clearly. Stereotypically. Salient, pragmatic, set of behaviors one requires deference and mitigation one requires, directness, you. Have to figure out which is which to get the right clues you, do really well you have the right clues you. Do really poorly your. Person, in your family is probably going to jail and the trial because you didn't get enough evidence we. Actually asked them to walk around the neighborhood, where this occurred historical. Fiction overlaid on actual spanish-speaking, neighborhoods, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You. Have to use your digital device that you're using anyway, to, look up right. I want, to facilitate your experience, in the seemingly neutral, may be uninteresting neighborhood, to you some of them have been there 100 times and not even known this neighborhood really matters right, EcoPOD. Is about cultural, narrative and sort of socio pragmatics, again not the focus, here and happy to return to any of these projects, as we get going. We'll, talk a little bit about it the two I really want, to dig into our games to teach because Karl, wanted me to talk about games as, well. As lingo to go to of our one, sort of an ongoing project, and one as an, extended. Project, of what we're doing right now to get, these kinds of information into, classrooms, across the country it's. One thing for my Spanish students and ale Spanish, students to do pragmatics, it's a whole other thing when you're training hundreds, and hundreds and hundreds of teachers to, do this kind of work that doesn't actually exist in textbooks, anywhere, right. We don't have one yet that has really. Clear pragmatic, information but. Before, we sort of dig into the tech a little bit I wanted to give you a little preview of what we're looking at we. Have to understand, the what if, we. Don't start to operationalize. What pragmatics. Is it becomes everything, right. It, becomes overwhelming it becomes, this space where all of a sudden we're like yeah maybe we should just kind of let learners do this on their own I'm pretty good at this other stuff that, we're good at um, so what we did is actually with, my team we and pulled apart 58, key publications.
And Intercultural, communicative, competence, and l2 pragmatics, and we. Said found, 15, different instruments, thirty five distinct coding, schema, they're all primarily, theoretical. In nature and it is so heterogeneous. It becomes impossible to figure out what we're talking about all, essentially. Purporting, to talk about the exact same construct, right, so. What we did is we said let's pull it all apart and let's look at what's in common across all of these models if we, look at what we all could sort of narrow down, to the essence, of this. Kind of skill. And behavior what does that look like, this. Is what we came up with four dimensions, of L. 2 or interactional, pragmatic, competence, 2, on the analytical, side and 2 on the effective, side so not and I'll look at these more closely in a minute knowledge, being, what we're used to right the kinds of things that you need to actually perform. Functions, the strategies. Analysis. Then being your ability to figure out why those are used and what's different about them then. On the, other side on the more effective, side is looking at subjectivity, a learner's. Choice how, do we know when a learner chooses, to deviate, from norms, or when, they just don't know that's a really big difference right sometimes, we actually choose, not, to adopt the norm of a culture we're learning about of a language we're learning and maybe. Contrary. And maybe this is kind of controversial. We shouldn't, have to, write. This idea, that learners are becoming, like, natives, actually. Is the wrong construct, you're never going to be, like them right Claire crumbs talks about this all the time you, instead. Are figuring, out how you fit, in a productive, meaningful. Multilingual. Globalized, space and that's our goal to figure that out but. I want to know I don't want my students to fake it right I don't want them to be like oh I'm just choosing not to do that really. Right. What are we gonna do with that and then finally just awareness. That this matters, in the world right um. Three basic, assumptions, that we pulled from these and they're, really really important because they. Definitely. Move. This model, into. A space that might be a little bit different from what people are used to in terms of ICC one all interaction. Is co-constructed. Our. Assumption, is that absolutely. You, engage, and decide on norms, based on who you're talking to, period. There might be patterns, there. Might not right. And so we need to be ok with that also. Any kind of profile, like this is irreducible, to a single score right. It's irreducible, to say hey I'm gonna give you a pragmatic. Competent, score like we do with an API, or with a proficiency, level there has to be some sort of profile, associated with this and likely many. Profiles, equal. Productive, language, users, and language interactants, and finally. We're talking about skills not attitudes, many. Of the frameworks we look at talk about preferences, talk. About kinds of food you're willing to eat talk, about places you're willing to sleep. From. Our perspective and from our analysis that actually doesn't have anything to do with your ability to communicate well with humans, if I, only want to eat macaroni and cheese the rest of my life my four-year-old at least that's what she does I at, least need to say I really, would prefer only, to eat this or you don't have to be this sort of adventurous. Opened. Everything, kind of person, that has benefits, in other ways of course but, it doesn't actually tell us much about your ability to interact well with human beings.
Just. To. Give you a sense of what this framework looks like, on. The knowledge side we have four areas right one, recognizes. And produces, varying speech styles. Identifies. And produces, routine, formula, in multiple, domains in other words I can invite someone with. A friend in a service encounter, I know I even buy and, in a professional, space etc. Interprets. And produces, implicature, and multiple domains implicature. Being one of the fundamental, pieces of pragmatics, and intercultural that is really tricky and. Then. Demonstrates, knowledge of varying, cultural, dimensions, and social distinctions, so you, actually can start thinking about oh with, a leave-taking I, need to start this much earlier than I was anticipating. And. You go through, the. Analysis, piece, uses. Conscious. Strategies, to repair miscommunication. Right you actually can stop and say ooh something, went weird there right, something didn't happen like I intended. Identifies. And evaluates, intended, in our locator meaning and can figure out why, and. Describes, dimensions, impacting, discourse patterns things like turn-taking you could actually give a meta analysis or what we might call meta pragmatic, skills would fall into this piece of that. Subjectivity. Looks, at demonstrating, the ability to make conscious, choices about, discursive. Patterns and behaviors, and, can. Discern individual, personality. From cultural norms right you have to know if the person you're interacting with is sort of an odd duck right, or if. It's like oh this is something I'm gonna have to really get used to as I work through this culture. Finally. On the awareness, scale demonstrates. Awareness, of others perspectives. This is more general so analysis, really focuses, in on the language piece of those pragmatics piece the discursive piece maybe even gestures, awareness. Opens, that up to a bigger space, and, then. Recognizes. Motives, and reasons, for actions of one selves, often. That thinks about that means we're talking about cultural. Background. History, why. There's this long-standing, assumption. About certain things from long long ago right, there is a historical. Space that, you have to pay attention to. So. That is the perspective we're taking in much of this work as we sort of dive into the games and the tech and what do we do again as you can see it's sort of this. Complex. Picture that, when all, together, you're like oh yeah cool trying, to isolate all of those pieces is what's really difficult and that's what we're trying to figure out how to do, and. That's. What we call addressing. The house right, that's what we're gonna sort of dig into great, so how do we do any of this. One. Is taking advantage of the affordances. Of digital technologies. These. Can be validated they can be scaled and we can get lots and lots and lots of data we. Can actually try, to figure, out what's happening both pre and post but also during. For. Example, in some of the Coquille and ear research I did originally, we, had 120, hours of gameplay data, press, pre post plus 65, hours of interview, data we. Had all these learners who were doing okay, right, and all of us that I'm like what's going on with this group of learners they did pretty well on their products, pre, posts just changed, what's, really going on cuz they don't quite seem to get the stuff we're talking about I went. In they never, had, touched the, game, they. Learned from their friends, they had accounts, of the game they knew all this stuff about the game, all this attendant, discourse, work but the data actually could tell us like huh of course, they never actually did this piece and so, we have to think through the process and we're looking at innovation, and we're trying to figure out building. Interventions, for lots and lots of people. Again. As I mentioned the first place, we went in. The place I was most interested in is digital games mostly. Because of their ability to do complicated things in pretty simple, ways. The. Games themselves to build a really difficult. The ideas. About what we put in them are really challenging, but in the end we actually see a pretty straightforward you know when you play a good game how many of you have actually liked, to play games maybe I should say kind of complicated, games, I, don't know if you're like no way that's, allowed to write.
What. We know about games and learning is that, they're very good at goal orientation, and goal directed activity. Without taking, away player agency the, goals of the game are really clear my learning objectives are really, really clear right, I want you to do this whatever that looks like in my case that's I want you to learn pragmatics, in some, cases that's I want you to conquer the world in other cases it's I want you to rescue the princess but you get to decide how you get there, also. We see a strong social consequence, of that whether that's in the game which actually, is pretty low stakes more. It's around the game right, people, who play that game as well also really care about what happens and a, willingness to communicate. Rangers. And Wattana have some really interesting work on using games and getting learners willing to speak up right in, ways that they don't do in typical classrooms, also. A strong potential, for language socialization. Or in other words learning something new as you go through a community, it stimulates, really well what it's like to not know anything, in this really complicated, world all, the way through like yeah I'm an expert I can do this if, you liken it to an airport the first time you ever get off in a target target, language country, and you've never been there before and you're like I got this at. Least can get my suitcase and you look and it's what. Right. But you know this sign matters, and so you can filter there and you know that and games do that really well they start you by focusing, you and then get you to the bigger picture. Finally. Complex, feedback, mechanisms, they're the only system. You're. Not the only they're, one of the few systems where we get individualized. Real-time. Feedback in, other. Words when you get killed. Like. It or not in a game it doesn't matter it's the principle, we care about you. Get immediate. Feedback about, what you did wrong and you get to try again and you can do that 25, times if you need to before. You get it right we. Also scaffold. It really well in games if we do the classic version deserve Super Mario Brothers if I say that is everyone has some familiarity, it's a little man or any Luigi and they jump around you, start by jumping like this right you, then. What happens you have to do a double jump shoot you then. What happens oh we. Have to do a super jump it's super hard right b/2a has, to go sure and. Then. What happens. The. Cliff opens up underneath all of a sudden if you miss your super jump you fall in vs., before you just jumped over and so, it scaffolds. You in to these kinds, of behaviors that you get to practice over and over and over again which, is what we want with language right we want them to start sentence, level word level and get to this discursive, level. Intentionally. Without it feeling like they mess up all the time right. That's what happens to learners they make one mistake and it's like I'm not talking again in this class, right. Like I'm done. Games. Do the exact opposite, thing I, messed. Up oh I gotta get this hold, on mom I just gotta beat this level it's. My very favorite expression, and the worst thing to hear right because you're like please really could you stop playing this game I get that that's not what we're talking about we're, talking about the behavior that says hold on I'm learning, let, me practice again, right. Those, are the things that we actually really care about so. What we did then is we pulled it apart and we said okay great for pragmatics, we, get agency, we, get the ability to deal with language variety, I can. Actually put a bunch of non player characters in, a game to have all kinds of varieties of Spanish, and you, got to figure it out right. Well, that person oh that, person is different than that person why are they so different what's going on and then as an instructor I get to build in all kinds, of wraparound analysis.
And Reflection it's, like why are they different let's, dissect it, let's look at it let's figure it out, again. Feedback, we just talked about in. Addition. Context. Right games have the ability, to emotionally. Connect, a user to the experience. Not, to the technology, to the experience. Right, they. Did some. Early. Research with the Stanley Milgram experiments, of the 60s does everyone know what I'm talking about they're so. Used to be it was an actual human you, sat in front of the screen and they would pay you to shock them and the more you shocked them the more they were looking, at people's stress thresholds. And they, would major all kinds of neurological and, brain things what they did they wanted to know how people relate to advertisers in digital environments so they actually replicated. That exact study and, guess. What they found. The. Same if not worse. Right. The stress, effect, of stressing, that avatar probably, having to do with temporal, space and how we feel about shocking, people in the 60s versus the 2000s. Right but. What that told us it's just one study there's others tons looking, at avatar body men and identity. Integration what it said is we, might actually be, able to create a roleplay that, means something, right. What happens now when we give roll please. Here's. Some cards, you'll have a scenario. What. Happens I. Don't. Have an idea. Yeah. They have to visualize the context but I happened, to get the doctor card and I never, have any interest, in being the doctor. Right. What happens huh. I'll. Be the doctor, blah. Blah what's wrong with right, and, you see you can watch it happen you can watch the eyes glaze over you can watch or you can watch when a learner gets a roll they're excited about you're like yes I'm, gonna be oh right. And you see these things happening um and, so the goal is actually to create role plays that means something right to connect that emotional, space to what's going on finally. Again language variation, and variety, being a fundamental, goal of the kinds of things we do um. I talked. A little bit about mantilla. The, family murder mystery, game EcoPOD. Is a separate, kind of game in which we start to get at the awareness, and met a pragmatic, side of things so mentira, really looks at knowledge and analysis, in spanish for fourth, semester students, of spanish you, have to know the routine formula, and you have to analyze how they work across language varieties.
EcoPOD. Is all about the other side of that scale the awareness, side where you say I want you to pay attention to how it might be different you have to survive. A pandemic, it's based on the first year reading that every student read at the University of Oregon so they've already read the novel we, used that novel we turn it into a chooser on, sure game to see if you could live through the first 40 days of the pandemic, which is what happens in the book and so they, start by trying to survive in Oregon and then they play in their target language one, of five languages, Japanese, Chinese French German, or Spanish and, all. Of a sudden what you see happening, is it feels weird, right. Because, we gave them all the same choices we. Gave them all the same narrative that we did in the English version but, what's the problem with that. The. Language is great what's. The problem. All. The, pragmatics, all the cultural pieces are completely off right. And there are some countries in which you would get the choice in this case that you have to leave your room get out right get your stuff get going you're gonna be in trouble some. Countries, you don't have that choice in. Other. Places you wouldn't even get a warning and so what we asked learners to do then and wrap around with, their instructors, with their groups was we. Want you to actually figure out how to rewrite this, narrative to make it pragmatically, appropriate, so actually, using game design as the, learning tool plane, was part of it but they didn't play to learn they actually, had to rethink how to design, as part of a narrative essentially. Uh-huh. So. What we do is we try to be true to the game characters. Colloquial. Language instead. Of the game schuylkill, language so in, other words in all of our games event era is especially because we had new Mexican Spanish and we intentionally put, new Mexican Spanish in there we had some speakers. Who tried to avoid that because we wanted to deal with the heritage language identity pieces. This. We're very true to a character, in their persona, but. We say in this imaginary game world they all live together all the time right, so that's what's fun about games, as we can sort of mess it up we can mess with it but. We also then. Make, sure we account, for all of those right as many of them as we can we don't get all of them of course. It. Has to I mean from my perspective it, has to be that way right games give us the opportunity to do that not doing so as sort of a disservice in a way that we can't do in a printed text sometimes right there wouldn't be space to put all two. 100 greeting possibilities. Right I think that's where we're at right and span I don't know it's something like that they're quite a few right. Of what you can do just. To give you a sense of the data this is the kind of thing we do this is from Antigua we plot out, how. Users, do it how they work with it. We. Find. There's. A ton of value um. Here's what the research shows us so far one, place, is key for the creation of meaningful, fictional, stories we need the place so they're going out into that neighborhood really, matters. Mobile. Technologies, can facilitate complex. Interactions, in the community, one of my favorite stories anyone, familiar with Albuquerque, understands. What I mean when I say cholo right so you have it's a very clear persona, it's a very clear, not, to be stereotypical but, rather a piece that they themselves, self-identify. With right you, have to have the right truck and the right painting and the right tires and the right music I mean everything, about this, I'd done any Mathers and sometimes. It's scary to learners good bad indifferent there. Was. A house where his grandmother was living our, students, are out playing he pulls up his truck and, they're like. Not. Quite sure they stopped and they're. Like hey check out her game, right. And they engaged him with this game next, thing I know 45, minutes later they're all checking out the truck the game has gone who knows where what happened to it right and it became, a real, community, interaction, in that place and that, in and of itself showed up in their data over, and over and over again now I see Spanish, matters he.
Loved It when I knew of these words right those, kinds. Of things in, a way that they wouldn't get otherwise there's Joe the sausage, guy he lives on the neighborhood he has a food cart he Dutch sells greens Philly sausage, if you ever go to Las Vegas and, Albuquerque, get, a sausage, from Joe it's delicious. But. He also facilitates, oh let me tell you about the history of Spanish in this neighborhood, let me tell you about what my mom did I don't speak Spanish anymore, but let me tell you what it's like right. It changes fundamentally the, kinds of interactions, we care about is, it, true if I tested, them on preterite. Versus imperfect, after that experience they do worse yeah it's true. Eventually. Though they'd, be able to tell us that story really. Really. Using, the structures they need in a way that matters to them and that's, what really matters in the kind of work that we're looking at we'd get there it's not that it's gone forever, so we're requiring, a bigger picture earlier. So. Some things that we've been working on also as I mentioned one is we build games right I am, under no illusion, everyone in this room even wants to build a game or. Can or should it doesn't the idea it this takes teams of people and I would say I'm not the game designer right I'm the language person, so we always have teams of game designers that come in and work with us this. Is one of my very favorites, that you can start right. Away. This is on games to teach it's a freely available resource, as part of our LRC, grant this, is the kind of work that we do. It's, called parable, of the polygons, has anyone ever played this. Nikki, case is by far one of my favorite game designers he's out of Portland. This. Is essentially. A story, game, blog, it's, an interactive website where you learn, about race you think about race and you have to keep. Your squares. And your triangles, happy, touch your golem the way that you're happy is when. You're by people, who are the same as you and different. Than you but there are certain proportions, of how many sameness, and how many different and their squares and triangles right, it, totally, neutralized. In that space but as you go through the. Game starts, to teach you about oh. Look. What happened everyone, ended up segregated, anyway in their own groups why. Does it happen why. Are humans, like that and it gives you a neutral, space to. Engage with these kinds, of issues and language courses and so we've, built out a full set of activities. That a teacher could do tomorrow you can download them they're freely available at, the novice intermediate and, advanced, levels, based on national standards for proficiency, throwing. In as much pragmatics, as we can because pragmatics, are fairly void from those standards. We. Also have a number of similar activities, around, commercial. Games so instead of building our own games let's, use what's already out there let's use what people are putting millions of dollars into and let's, do something with it around these language, issues let's get learners, engaged. These, are just three exam, SimCity, build-it it's a simulation, game around building your own city we. Have all kinds of activities about sitting planning, about. Cultural, differences, economics. And as you get into more, advanced levels, obviously. The topics, get more advanced right novice level we're looking at words and, structures. And textures, by. The end you're having, to look at in. This case plague Inc you're having to look at making decisions about where world, aid goes, how, are those decisions made and what role does language, have.
In Those decisions you. Can. See the languages, these are available for, so the ideas you play the language in your target language there, are activity. Packs they, look kind of like this, directly. Associated. With those this is just the summary so you can get an idea right at the novice level you. Have to recognize and understand, basic vocabulary in, order to play the game you have to understand, and follow basic instructions you, have to list relevant places, around town and describe the locations, we. Do that all the time right. And. So it, gives us a way to get, at some of these issues on, from the beginning in addition, to building kind of our own games. The. Newest, project, that we have is. Called Ling grow to go I'm really, really excited about this it's a freely available app, it's a partnership with linger learning. You. Can download the app now on your iphones it's easy to do or on your Android devices. If. You. Ever run out of coins just shoot me an email I send you a bunch of new free coins. It's. Not about the, money piece but what we've done is we've actually taken, a stand and we've said functional. Language learning matters if we, start, with function, at the premise and at the beginning instead of a structure, that we've had for, a long long time which says here's grammar let's fit these structures, on top right, in Spanish. An example, we have a lot of is the reflexive, verbs everyone, can tell mewhere reflexive, verbs are in every Spanish text where. Anyone. Who teaches Spanish you know it's. Probably the same in French I guess. Anyone. Know. Daily. Routines. Yeah. Hey, Carl, what did you do this morning oh, truly. Let me tell you I got up and first, I brushed my teeth and then I got in the shower and then I brushed my what. Right. We never, tell, people that part about our day unless. We're. Figuring out a schedule for who's gonna get up first and shower first and we have all this stuff going on or oh my, gosh it was this crazy day you're never gonna believe what happened I was brushing my hair in the brush fell apart and then my hairdryer stopped working right there are very specific reasons, but that is not where we inherently, use reflexive, verbs what.
We've Done historically traditionally. Is we've said we need a communicative, function, we know communicative, language teaching is, important, in this country we're, going to put this function, on top of, this grammar point and make it look communicative, right. The. Opposite, is actually where we started so what we did is we said what functions, do learners at the novice level need, what. Functions, at the intermediate do learners need and how do we get there and how do we pull apart structure. To get out that so, what you see here is just a sample from the scope and sequence but it takes you through saying, hello to your friends and family well. You really need is greetings and nice to meet you right. There's a lexical, set there's a structural, set you, see the lexicon, first then you see the structure you need greeting chunks and question. Punctuation, and word order it's, not void, of structure, it's, the opposite, it's saying I want to give you the grammar and the structure, you need to. Be able to make a meaningful connection. With the function, you're accomplishing. Then. You we have two other videos about greeting friends and family which I'm going to show you in a minute and then writing down words to remember them language, learning strategies, explicit. Strategic. Information, on how, to learn right. I want. You to pay attention ultimately. Is what we're saying, to. Give you a sense of how that pragmatics. Information. Gets embedded, there. Are two pieces, using. Hashtags, to create meaning. No. Matter which social, media platform, you are using you, have to admit that hashtags, are hashtag. Awesome or. After. All they, can add so much extra meaning to what you're saying one, way they add meaning is by providing some, additional context. Are you at the hashtag, San, Sebastian. Film Festival. Or is. Something new happening, right now, etiquette. Ah Yoda, no. Matter what it is you, can tell people who, what, where, and when with, a hashtag, simply, by adding order, to, hashtags. Also, add meaning by facilitating. Connections, for, example, a brand, of food can connect itself with a movie by using a hashtag with its title, individuals. Can connect themselves with, celebrities. By using their names with a hashtag either. Way a sort of digital relationship. Is created. Another. Way that hashtags, make meaning is by summarizing complex. Situations. A great. Example that arose out of the Bolivian, water crisis, was, etiqueta. La, Paz sin, agua, another. Great example, etiqueta. Seen, Maya's no I Pease, came. Out of the recent Mexican, tortilla crisis. So. No matter what your purpose make, sure to use a hashtag, on your next social media post you, just might add a little extra meaning to your message. So in that case we chose to actually explicitly teach, them those pieces, hopefully, the greeting when is next I thought they're out of order say, go. Moist us now. What, do I say one. Of the first phrases many people learn in Spanish is but what's that along, with get, that it's, just one of the many ways to say how are you but. Before we look at the way people commonly, respond, to these expressions, in Spanish let's, take a minute to think about what you would say in English would. You instinctively, say something, like great, fine, or okay, in, English, we often use the phrase how are you as a way to simply, greet others there, is typically no expectation. Of a detailed, response or any, information, about how you really feel in fact. It's, often jarring, when someone, gives a serious or genuine, answer in Spanish, however, most us or get, that can, be answered with both short and long responses, the, question, is more often than not a genuine, inquiry, into someone's, well-being and it's quite common for Spanish, speakers to respond with additional, information that explains their response when. Estoy, wasanta preocupada, penguin. Salmon mañana y muy su Diago or, even. A short anecdote about their day poof. No tiene Vasek rare pero, esta mañana mientras, para para ver cafe. Offering. More details, is a way to build solidarity, or. Closeness in, a relationship. And express. Interest in continuing, the conversation. So. Next time someone asks, you come, with us don't, be afraid to tell them how you really feel and get the conversation rolling, and always, expect the same when you ask. So. If we go back to our original model, right knowledge you've, got to note get that Comus, that's, right. You. Also then, need to analyze which one do I do when, and who do I give explanations. To do I not give explanations. To right. I might choose to never give more explanations, that might be a choice right I guess not me I can't do that or, you might know like oh I actually get to tell people this is my day right.
Awareness, Is knowing that this difference even a curse right we. Can start this week one. A Spanish, class it doesn't have to be something that wait still study abroad it doesn't have to be something that people do, eventually when they get good enough right the other thing I really like about when, we start digging into discourses, we can actually use this then for, other pieces right, writing. Assessment, first two weeks of class hey, fill out my comic, about how people greeted each other and all of a sudden you have, write. The explanation, that has to occur in a very real way, in. The, app learners, not only watch the video but then they get to play games that, actually. Reinforce, those issues the strategy, they get to it they have to make decisions, they need to play trivia they, get to sort words we also look at lexicon, and structure and all these pieces to. Be able to really. Dive into the way, lexicon. Structure, pragmatics, strategies, all work, together to accomplish, the kinds of things we do with language every day again. Freely available scalable. The whole idea is how do we get this out into the world in ways that people can do something with it um. The. Last piece I'm going to talk about and then I promise to wrap up is I think this, is one, of the projects, that were maybe. Most excited, about and most challenged, by so if in a year from now this hasn't happened you, can hold me accountable for, saying Oh keep trying, but. We don't know exactly how it's going to come out to be totally honest I pick. Is a partnership. With another language, Resource Center at yeller see out of Georgetown, University and, the Center for Applied linguistics and, the goal, of this project really is to develop, a digital simulation, for assessing. This, framework in other words can, we put. An epic, score. Next. To an OPI score, and give you a more accurate picture of how well a learner will do, right. You might only be advanced, mid. Proficiency. Level but, you might have a really.
High. IPic score. Right. That might make you better abroad than a superior, level learner with a really, low iPic score I mean yes, it will make you better hopefully if we can get the test right I mean that's the trick right so. We. Are starting with Korean, and Spanish. And then, we'll have an English test version as well to, one provide. Instructors, with the profile of their students, intercultural competence, or pragmatic competence. And enable. Them to have, them in propria, instructional, interventions, the. Way we are doing this is through digital games, and simulations, so you go, in you have a series of people you have to interact with those, pieces about feedback and agency the goal is you need to accomplish, these tasks, we, then pause the assessment, and we say hey why did you do that getting. At subjectivity, getting, at reflection, we're. Looking at it across three domains so looking at peer to peer interaction service. Encounters, and. Professional. Encounters, four five language, functions, greetings, leave takings, requests. Refusals, and invitations, all, of which in some way can. Be engaged across, those three domains and down. Different, sort of levels of intensity, power distance, etc, so, I don't have anything to show you yet because we just finished the models in the storyboards but I wanted to let you know that's sort of where we're going if we start from, these sort, of commercial game wraparound spaces, mobile, stuff AR in the middle all the way through to eventually, we want to be able to test this which is what's going to make it matter long term sort of in the, world at large, um. From. There hopefully the idea is where what how and what do we do with all of this to make it a reality in language, classrooms. With. That I will leave it open for questions and discussion, and I promised, Carr less than an hour's thing 53. Minutes maximal. Learning, lengths right. Time. For questions, about. Games. That. Julie's. Working on or the research that they've conducted or so. Forth high school, students. To supplement, their classroom. Or, Adobe. Absolutely. Yeah, oh sorry. The question was um for, a high school student wanting, to supplement, their language learning woodling go to go be a good option and the answer is yes we have high school students all over the country who've just started using it and find it to be really me at middle school as well. It's. Free yep. There is a way to sort, of level, up quicker if you spend money but no one thus far really has needed to so we have all kinds of data no one's spent very much money which is good I like that it's okay. I, in, a perfect world you'd use them both together dough, lingo is all about grammar translation and. One-to-one. Lexical, meaning so in other words you translate, something and you learned the one-to-one lexical. Meaning if, we take the word like coffee which I just use the reality is there are lots of meanings for the word coffee and soju, lingo misses that if you really want to drill vocabulary. Right if we're looking at high frequency, drilling, vocabulary. Only, dough lingo is not a bad choice if you, want to do that in combination, with this more comprehensive, picture lingo, - goes the way to go you get still let you still get lexicon, it's not void of that it's. Just shelled. Within language functions 25, words a unit is essentially, what you get. And. And. How could they let me care to like engage. In adults works that work out a lot of adult. Tutors. And they're, always looking for new ways, to access the language a bit more like functional. Community, ever so, it's something like this like we like to like. So. We have it I mean we don't have a ton of empirical, data yet I'm then gonna go that's pretty brand new but we I've seen eight, I mean so I was just with a group, of my parents, friends actually and I'm like cuz you all stop playing we're actually supposed to be doing something so um I think that that's definitely I, don't think that's a sort of a diagnostic, in that space when.
We're Talking about commercial, games it just depends, on the group of people right there are some, groups. Of adult learners who are way into. Sort of the game space if not so more than some of the college, kids who have all these other competing priorities, in, other instances, it's like I'm not touching a video game from a mile away so it's sort of having to pick what's best we, always try to just give choices I mean I think that's what I've learned the most about this kind of work it's a little bit more work but, just. Giving one game, is a bad choice in, other words not. Everyone, engages, with the same kinds, of games even and so, some, people love shooter games some people hate them some people are adamantly, opposed to them and so if that's the only option you give that's I'm not advocating shooter, games for the record unless, you have learners were really into that anyway and I'm like please play in French um, and so right. Sorry I don't know if that answers. Engage. Them so I used. Has, anyone heard of somebody amigo. It's, a Portuguese, game it's a Portuguese music game actually and, it's. For the Wii and what's, super cool about it is you actually play along and then all these words sort of Pais Portuguese, so it's a little different there are other ones I think actually now available, in other languages, my, 85. Year old and 90 year old grandparents, loved, it can, we play that game thing, you have Julia right because, you can sit you can do it there was some really fun stuff around, that and, so it's just a matter of sort of finding, the right game I think we, have a database, on that games to teach site that gets you going there about now, 150. Games I think in the database, and so it's worth digging, into and you can put in the language and everything available in that language pops, up and then, you can start sort of digging through I'd. Highly advocate playing, at, least 2 hours of any game before you put it in any classroom just. Like we'd never show a film we haven't watched we. Shouldn't use a game we've never played I. Know. It seems obvious like, that you'd, be so surprised, I gave, this to my students, and I can't believe I'm like did you play that, get some level to write those kinds of things. Course. There's talking in the blended learning environment. Absolutely this. Is learning, classes. For, language learning so I have two questions one is do. You have any data that shows you, know assessment, data that shows those, courses, but losing evening, game learning as. Part, of. Learning. Is. Produce, more more, or are superior. Student. Learning outcomes, compared, to a regular class. And. The second question is is, more practical if I'm, the language instructor. I want to assign a game for, my students. How. Do I sign up like that I tell them okay just do unit. 1 what's, unit 1 in game you, know super yeah, yeah, so. To answer your first question there, are a couple studies that have looked at control, groups as compared, to sort. Of a game based group looking at lexicon, in some cases in my case the data actually bears out no difference, I. Think. The, t
2018-05-10 15:41
