“Learning from real life and not books”: A gamified approach to Business English task design in transatlantic telecollaboration

Abstract

This paper deals with task design in the context of a telecollaboration project which was carried out in a Business English course among students from Spain and the United States. The goal was to provide students with opportunities to develop linguistic, intercultural and digital competences by interacting and collaborating online with native speakers of the target language. A task-based approach was adopted and enriched by gamification, the different tasks being designed with a view towards engaging students intrinsically in the learning process. This was achieved by means of the adoption of gamification strategies and techniques such as the use of points, performance graphs, quests, avatars, a reward system, peer assessment and the use of social media. Via technological immersion, students from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean were required to work together online to complete different tasks while exchanging peer feedback and assessment. The paper analyses and discusses participants’ views and perceptions about the gamified telecollaboration exchange. The quantitative and qualitative data were gathered by means of a pre- and a post-treatment questionnaires. Results indicate that students found this way of learning beneficial in terms of the development of different skills and competences (namely linguistic, digital and intercultural) and motivation.

Keywords

• telecollaboration
• gamification
• task design
• Business English