Paper presentation Teachers' Pedagogical Scaffolds in Ludic Language Pedagogy: Implementing Synthesis of Qualitative Data (SQD) Model more

Sat, Jun 18, 14:45-15:15 Asia/Tokyo

Ludic language pedagogy is concerned with exploring games and plays in language teaching contexts (York et al., 2021). This approach uses a playful disposition toward curricular design and encourages academic work through games or playful activities. But current research on games in language education lacks details regarding the role of teachers and scaffolds teachers use to integrate games and play into teaching. Thus, we explored teachers’ supports in game-based language teaching from students’ perspectives. In this study, teachers’ pedagogical scaffolds was measured based on the six support strategies of Synthesis of Qualitative Data (SQD-model) composed of different support strategies of role model, instructional design, authentic experience, collaboration, reflection, and feedback. Through a qualitative lens, seven first-year university students in the Iranian EFL context engaged in game-based language learning and were interviewed regarding their teachers’ pedagogical scaffolds during the training sessions. Qualitative content analysis was used for data analysis. The findings showed that role models provided sufficient understanding of games and mirrored the educational use of games among the strategies. The second most favorable strategy was the collaboration through which the participants had adequate opportunities to work together and share ideas, which reduced their anxiety. The findings also suggested that although all of the strategies were sufficiently addressed during game-based learning, the participants felt that the teacher did not give them sufficient support for reflective practice. The significance of the study is crucial to understand that the role of teachers is imperative for the game-based learning experience. Also, it shed light on what teachers’ roles can add to language and literacy learning. Moreover, findings will contribute to a community of practices around games that can be nurtured, cultivated, and eventually propagated across multiple classroom contexts and settings.