Many learners are now quite digitally skilled. However, this does not entail that they know how to learn through digital technologies. Therefore, establishing an interactive virtual learning platform that connects everyone together in a classroom environment and helping learners become familiar with such media might serve a set of purposes in any…

The study was conducted to find out what impact a digital game had on students' learning performance and motivation. A quasi-experimental study was performed with two groups of students. The experimental group was taught using the digital game "Kahoot" whereas the control group was taught with the conventional method. Pre-tests,…

This paper describes a narrative-based design framework that organizes three narrative elements (i.e., storyline, character, and quest) to support a contextual game-based environment for language learning. Using this design framework, a PlanetAdventure system was developed to examine its feasibility and its effects on student language learning. A…

Upper-secondary school students must prepare for adult life, which--among others--entails acquiring relevant skills and discovering their own potential. Efforts at European and national levels have been made to ensure that students gain the competences, the so-called key competences, which facilitate functioning in the modern world. However, in…

Based on the assumption that educational software addressing Primary school learners must comprise a set of features to encourage children's creativity and development, the appropriate design of second language hypermedia adaptive games for Primary School children can pose a wide range of challenges both for the language teacher and computer…

Researchers investigated perceptions of Japanese college students toward the use of digital games in English-language learning. The study was conducted at one large private university in Japan. Undergraduate students who were enrolled in 14 English-language courses were invited to complete a paper-based survey during class time. The survey…

In this paper the incidental language acquisition of 11-year-old Flemish children (n = 30) who have not received any formal English instruction is investigated. The study looks into children's English proficiency and the learner characteristics that can be associated with it. In order to measure the children's English proficiency, a receptive…

English business writing is an important and challenging course for English as Foreign Language (EFL) students since it is not only related to English writing skills, but also to business knowledge. Context-game based learning seems to be a good approach to situating students in a meaningful and interesting practicing environment, which could…

This paper reports on a study into the effects of digital game play on learners' Willingness to Communicate (WTC), or individuals' "readiness to enter into discourse at a particular time with a specific person or persons, using a L2" (MacIntyre, Dörnyei, Clément, & Noels, 1998, p. 547). Thirty Thai learners of English as a foreign…

The main aim of the present paper is to introduce a model for digital game categorization suitable for use in English language learning studies: the Scale of Social Interaction (SSI) Model (original idea published as Sundqvist, 2013). The SSI Model proposes a classification of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) digital games into three categories:…

This paper presents findings from a study investigating young English language learners (YELLs) in Sweden in 4th grade (N = 76, aged 10-11). Data were collected with the help of a questionnaire and a one-week language diary. The main purpose was to examine the learners' L2 English language-related activities outside of school in general, and their…

Recent studies of learner interaction in virtual worlds have tended to select basic tasks involving open-ended communication. There is evidence that such tasks are supportive of language acquisition, however it may also be beneficial to consider more complex tasks. Research in task-based learning has identified features such as non-linguistic…

This paper presents findings from a study investigating young Swedish learners' extramural (out-of-school) contact with English. In contemporary Sweden, the influx of English is great and research has shown that extramural contact with English correlates positively with students' proficiency in English (Olsson, 2011; Sundqvist, 2009; Sylvén,…

Today, playing digital games is an important part of many young people's everyday lives. Claims have been made that certain games, in particular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) provide L2 English learners with a linguistically rich and cognitively challenging virtual environment that may be conducive to L2 learning, as…

These proceedings contain the papers of the International Conference on Mobile Learning 2013, which was organised by the International Association for Development of the Information Society, in Lisbon, Portugal, March 14-16, 2013. The Mobile Learning 2013 International Conference seeks to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of…