Electronic Games Workshop

teaching strategy to develop motivation and learning in Spanish

Abstract

This article presents the report and conclusions of a research carried out over about three years with the aim of providing a playful process of learning Spanish to students in the final years of Elementary School in a public school. Based on the concepts of Homo Ludens (Huizinga, 2000), ergodic learning (Leffa; Beviláqua, 2019), and considering the insertion of digital technologies in language teaching, especially videogames, as proposed by authors such as Leffa and Pinto (2014), we proposed to develop a game workshop with students so that they would learn to create their own games and could use Spanish not as an end, but as a means to build their products. To do so, we first developed a game on the Escape Factory platform, which served as a basis and inspiration for the students. This research, with a qualitative approach, was carried out under the methodological assumptions of Design-Based Research, which foresees a series of phases in the development of products with educational purposes, phases that develop in iterative cycles, which imply continuous evaluations and reformulations. From the model game and the game workshop, the students developed their own digital games in Spanish. With the notes taken in the logbook throughout the process, in addition to the questionnaires answered by the students, we can state, even if further studies are needed, that learning an additional language through the development of games can be significant, motivating, and, especially, effective.