David Neville, assistant professor of German and director of language learning technologies, published "Cybertext redux: Using DGBL to teach L2 vocabulary, reading and culture," which will appear in the forthcoming issue of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL).
The journal is an international, interdisciplinary volume that leads the field in its dedication to all matters associated with the use of computers in language learning (L1 and L2), teaching, and testing.
In the article, Neville and co-authors Brett Shelton, assistant professor of instructional technology and learning sciences at Utah State University, and Brian McInnis, assistant professor of German at the University of Northern Iowa, report on a mixed-methods study using an interactive fiction (IF) game to teach German vocabulary, reading, and culture to university students. The study measured knowledge retention and transfer, and evaluated the attitudes of students toward the game. The results tentatively indicate that contextualized, immersive role-play may have helped students to learn. Nevertheless, most students were apprehensive about the game as a learning platform given the departure from traditional instruction. The authors also used the article to discuss new research findings related to the software design and development process and student involvement in this process.