Gamification is new to me. To be honest, I never used it in one class, or across a semester. I mean, we do use class activities to practice or to assess students' learning outcomes, but we never used a "game" in one single class or even for a longitudinal period of time. What is a game? What are the differences of between a game and an activity?
To find what a game is, I think we should first define what Game Mechanics is. In an article by Miguel Sicart, the author defines Game Mechanics as the "methods invoked by agents, designed for interaction with the game state."( see Game Mechanics). In another article on digital games, the authors also highlighted five areas where the parallels between digital game deign and second language acquisition principles, which are goals, interaction, feedback, context and motivation. (see Technology—“Just” Playing Games? A Look at the Use of Digital Games for Language Learning )
To me, the most important nature of games, which is also clarified in both definitions in the above articles, is "interactions". Social interactions are extremely important to the process of learning, according to Sociocultural Theories: we learn things through interacting with others through mediation. I believe the interactive nature of games makes the learning more effective, fun and motivated. On the other hand, class activities are not always interactive.
Another feature of games I want to mention is "the flow". What is the flow? "The flow experience is one of the most universally euphoric experiences human beings enjoy. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defines it as "the satisfying, exhilarating feeling of creative accomplishment and heightened functioning." (see Sculpting Flow and Fiero). The three factors proposed by Csikszentmihalyi are clear goals, rigidly defined rules of engagement and the potential for measured improvement in the context of those goals and rules. Therefore, in games, we want our students to be challenged in a context of rules to reach a certain goal, during which process, students learn things and the teacher assesses how much improvement students has accomplished.
Moreover, since games are interactive, other interaction-relevant key concepts can not be ignored, such as feedback, agency and communication. Students may get feedback from their peers and the teacher in games and learn through the interaction. Each students are not just participating as individuals but as agents of their own backgrounds and cultures, so the teacher must be aware of the individuality of each student and explore how to get each student engaged in the most effective way.
What comes to my mind about using games in language learning is that the teacher must clarify the goals and rules before the games. Since games are highly motivational as they are easy to make students distracted, to manage games in class context, especially the digital games, the teacher should make sure students understand why they are playing, what they are trying to learn and how to enhance the learning not only for themselves but also for others in class.
Making students aware of why games are being used is particularly important, since the learning may not be readily apparent. It is also important to encourage students to use the games outside of class since the games are often time-consuming.
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