Into the Book: On Teaching Reading Strategies through Online Games and its Effects on the L۲ Reading Comprehension Ability of Iranian EFL Learners

Over the past decades, the development and use of educational games have gained unprecedented momentum to the extent that practitioners now need to rethink current practices and to show wider recognition for the potentiality of games for enhanced learning in game-based learning (GBL) environments. Whereas there are games with direct learning outcomes, very few have focused on strategies required for the achievement of learning objectives. Given a paucity of games targeting teaching such strategies, the present article reports on the results of an experiment where the promising effects, if any, of an educational online game called Into the Book were examined on the learning of reading strategies and ultimately the comprehension of English reading passages among EFL learners. To this end, the groups under study received treatment on English reading strategies under one of two conditions: The experimental group was required to play with the game, practicing and applying six common reading strategies to the reading of passages. The summarizing strategy, for example, would require the participants to watch animated characters narrating a story and then drag and drop the main ideas into a virtual box appearing on the screen. The visualizing strategy, on the other hand, would require the learners to use the in-game stationary tools to create mental maps that could help them visualize the interrelationships between different concepts as they approached the reading texts. The other strategies, likewise, would require learners to interact with various objects in the game to arrive at a deep understanding of the gist of the passages. The participants’ counterparts in the control group, however, received treatment on the same reading strategies via teacher-fronted instruction. The findings revealed that the mean difference was in favor of the experimental group. The study carries important implications for teachers, teachers as designers, as well as language learners.

کلیدواژه ها:

Educational Games ، EFL Learners ، Game-Based Learning (GBL) ، L۲ Reading Ability ، Reading Strategies