Learnful L2 Gaming

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the worldwide social practice of gaming, to ground the book in practice, as a base from which to explore further. Just as digital gaming has both fans and critics, using games for L2TL has supporters and skeptics too. Unwitting to these debates, however, millions of people play vernacular digital games not designed for L2 learning in an L2, sometimes learning the L2 informally. After an exploration of the practices and critiques of digital gaming, the chapter examines the practice of gaming in other languages and the concept of games as cultural artifacts, with implications for gameful L2TL practice. The third section is a grounded analysis of several Internet discussions about using digital games for informal, intentional L2 learning. The collective Internet wisdom of how one should play digital games informally to learn another language, at least the wisdom gleaned from the analysis, is remarkably sound and aligned with SLA best practices, offering useful implications for gameful L2TL practice.