Leveraging Collaborative Work for Game-Based Language Learning

Over the past few years, language teaching has progressively evolved from teacher-fronted classroom settings to more complex, learner-centered scenarios, allowing learners to explore authentic contents, work collaboratively, and create sophisticated and socially relevant products. In addition, these processes foster language learning, increase learner engagement, and support the acquisition of competences such as critical thinking and democratic competence. In spite of these positive results, previous research has not always suggested efficient ways to properly manage classroom interaction and potentially enhance learning outcomes. Against this backdrop, this paper explores the potential of cooperation scripts as a means to leverage collaborative work and classroom interaction in complex learning scenarios. In this paper, we report on the first phase of an intervention study that was conducted with 17 university learners of German at the B2-C1 level. Survey results show that most of the students found the addition of the cooperation script to be beneficial when engaging in a complex, game-based scenario. [For the complete proceedings, see ED600837.]