Understanding Second Language Users as Gamers

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

• Prologue Acknowledgments List of Contributors Editor and Contributor Bios Reading Quests, or Four Possible Ways to Read this Volume Foreword: Toward Victorious Futures Preface Act I: The LaV Project 1. #TeamLaV’s Origins and Our Idea of Gamer 2. The LaV Framework 3. Our Design, Gamified Act II: LaV as (Re)Conceptualizing Language 4. The Linguistic Dimension of LaV 5. The Semiotic Dimension of LaV 6. The Aesthetic Dimension of LaV Act III: LaV as (Re)Contextualizing Victory 7. The Identity Dimension of LaV 8. LaV and Gamers as Second-Language Users 9. LaV and the Lives of Our Gamer-Researchers, Round 1: The World Warriors 10. LaV and the Lives of Our Gamer-Researchers, Round 2: The New Challengers Act IV: LaV as an Expanding Framework 11. The Missing Link: LaV as a Multiverse Gaming Framework 12. LaV and Gamers as Second-Language Teachers: The LaV Gamification Initiative 13. A Transcendent Approach to LaV: LaV Beyond Epilogue 14. Conclusion: LaV as Evolution, Communication, and Adaptation Afterword: “We Play Together, We Win Together, We Die Together—#TeamLaV 4 Life”