Game-based Immersive Approach to EFL and CLIL: A Case Example

This paper presents a case example related to a project promoted by INDIRE, the Italian Institute for Documentation, Innovation and Educational Research, in cooperation with a network of international experts in EFL and immersive teaching. The Institute created a virtual world, called “EdMondo”, which is addressed only to education, involving teachers and students from all over Italy. The virtual approach in combination with gamification can represent an effective way to enhance the teaching/learning of a foreign language and the delivery of subject content through a foreign language as in CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) methodology. INDIRE started to experiment the potential of virtual worlds for language teaching and learning in 2012. This paper illustrates a training initiative in which a group of teachers, in cooperation with INDIRE researchers, were engaged in training paths aimed at improving their methodological competences related to the use of immersive game-based technologies for EFL or CLIL lessons. The main focus of the paper is the description of the project and its main outcomes, with particular attention to the teachers’ reactions and to their challenges to build, design and script games for English or CLIL lessons in a virtual world. Some insights about the background on immersive and game-based learning are also provided.