1st Edition
Understanding Second Language Users as Gamers Language as Victory
Featuring #TeamLaV from the Literacies in Second Languages Project.
This volume documents how gamers use second languages in games and gaming communities, and how gaming interacts with literacy and language learning.
Grounded in an innovative longitudinal research study involving gamers not only as participants but as active researchers, this book offers insights into the new interactions that arise from gaming and language learning and addresses the needs for English learning in the context of video games. Exploring the roles of meaning-making and experiences across genres, this volume offers an original window into the essential and overlooked role that gaming can play in second language learning.
It is essential reading for researchers and scholars in literacy, TESOL, applied linguistics, and technology education.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Acknowledgments
List of Contributors
Editor and Contributor Bios
Reading Quests, or Four Possible Ways to Read this Volume
Foreword: Toward Victorious Futures
Antero Godina Garcia
Preface
Raúl Alberto Mora and Tyrone Steven Orrego
Act I: The LaV Project
Chapter 1: #TeamLaV’s Origins and Our Idea of Gamer
Raúl Alberto Mora, Carlos Andrés Gaviria, Sebas Maya, and Camilo Congote
Chapter 2: The LaV Framework
Raúl Alberto Mora, Tyrone Steven Orrego, Valentina Salazar-Quintero, and Felipe Ocampo
Chapter 3: Our Design, Gamified
Raúl Alberto Mora, David P. Hernández, Julián Londoño-Mazo, and Jeferson D Suárez
Act II: LaV as (Re)Conceptualizing Language
Chapter 4: The Linguistic Dimension of LaV
Jeferson D. Suárez, Carlos Andrés Gaviria, Camilo Congote, and Karolyn Barahona Aristizábal
Chapter 5: The Semiotic Dimension of LaV
Sebas Maya, Camilo Congote, and Tyrone Steven Orrego
Chapter 6: The Aesthetic Dimension of LaV
Valentina Salazar-Quintero, Felipe Ocampo, and David P Hernández
Act III: LaV as (Re)Contextualizing Victory
Chapter 7: The Identity Dimension of LaV
Tatiana Gómez-Ramírez, Valentina Salazar-Quintero, Tyrone Steven Orrego, and Karolyn Barahona Aristizábal
Chapter 8: LaV and Gamers as Second-Language Users
Carlos Andrés Gaviria, Sebas Maya, Julián Londoño-Mazo, and Jeferson D. Suárez
Chapter 9: LaV and the Lives of Our Gamer-Researchers, Round 1: The World Warriors
Julián Londoño-Mazo, Tyrone Steven Orrego, Tatiana Gómez-Ramírez, Carlos Andrés Gaviria, Carlos Andrés Sánchez-Rodas, and Andrés Martín-Martínez
Chapter 10: LaV and the Lives of Our Gamer-Researchers, Round 2: The New Challengers
Camilo Congote, Sebas Maya, Jeferson D. Suárez, Valentina Salazar-Quintero, David P. Hernández, Felipe Ocampo, and Karolyn Barahona Aristizábal
Act IV: LaV as an Expanding Framework
Chapter 11: The Missing Link: LaV as a Multiverse Gaming Framework
Tyrone Steven Orrego, Sebas Maya, and David P. Hernández
Chapter 12: LaV and Gamers as Second-Language Teachers: The LaV Gamification Initiative
Felipe Ocampo, Julián Londoño-Mazo, Tatiana Gómez-Ramírez, and Valentina Salazar-Quintero
Chapter 13: A Transcendent Approach to LaV: LaV Beyond
David P Hernandez, Karolyn Barahona Aristizábal, Jeferson D. Suárez, Camilo Congote, Esteban Rúa, Andrés Felipe Cataño, Steward Perez, and Raúl Alberto Mora
Epilogue
Chapter 14: Conclusion: LaV as Evolution, Communication, and Adaptation
Tatiana Gómez-Ramírez, Carlos Andrés Gaviria, Felipe Ocampo, Karolyn Barahona Aristizábal, and Raúl Alberto Mora
Afterword: “We Play Together, We Win Together, We DieTogether—#TeamLaV 4 Life”
#TeamLaV
Biography
Raúl Alberto Mora is Associate Professor in the School of Education and Pedagogy and the chair of the Literacies in Second Languages Project research lab at Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Medellín, Colombia
“I am excited to see the work of the #TeamLaV represented in this volume. These chapters address two existing gaps in the expanding field of gaming literacies: 1) gaming practices with second-language users, and 2) game play and strategies to attain victory and sustain commitment. Core threads in the LaV framework that weave throughout the chapters are learning, playing, identity, and networking. These core threads support all learners, not just second-language learners. Even for non-gaming students, these concepts offer substance for developing how they move through their worlds and learning spaces. To that end, they offer educators a framework for supporting all students in a variety of literacy spaces. This excites me about introducing this work to my own students.”
Jennifer S. Dail, Ph.D., Professor, English Education, Kennesaw State University, USA
“This volume showcases research from Colombian gamers and second language learners, contributing these much-needed perspectives to the field of game studies and literacy learning. Readers will appreciate the gaming expertise and insightful analysis showcased across these chapters written by gamers themselves. The communal, cross-cultural, and polylingual Language-as-Victory framework – highlighting concepts of learning, playing, identity, and networking – is a useful lens for gamers, teachers, and researchers alike. This volume challenges the field to reconceptualize gaming not as a trivial form of entertainment but as a collective, transformative, and deeply humanizing collective movement bending toward transcendence.”
Karis Jones, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Secondary English Language Arts, Baylor University, USA
