How do students draw on texts read in class to explore and make sense of the world? How does role-play open up the possibilities of utilising these resources, remaking them for their own purposes? How does play, as Vygotsky suggests, enable students to achieve more? And how does being in role change the character of social relations in the…

While massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft are often accused of leading to excessive and harmful playing, the only gaming activity that is internationally recognized as a pathological disorder is excessive gambling. The present article seeks to establish empirical data on potential harmful online gaming through a…

This paper reassesses the mainstream tasks used for evaluating Thai EFL learners' speaking skills: face-to-face interview and role-play. Based on final and preliminary findings from small-scale classroom research, it examines the capacity of these two tasks to assess the learners' conversation skills in particular and recommends a task that is…

This article discusses the role of culture in language teaching and provides activities for introducing culture in the classroom, focusing on teaching context and methodology to integrate culture. The authors outline five activities that can be adapted to the language level and interests of students. Instructions for each activity include language…

Interest in the instructional application of virtual worlds, such as "Second Life" (SL), has grown substantially. However, little information is available about effective instructional activities using virtual worlds. This case study illustrates lessons learned from a pilot integrating SL into a two-semester English course at a large…

During social interactions people self-monitor their behavior at least partially to conceal socially devalued characteristics. This study examined the influences of concealing academic achievement on self-monitoring in an academically-relevant social interaction. An interview paradigm called for school-aged adolescent participants (total N = 86)…

Based on extracts from an ethnography produced during the ESRC 2009-10 research project, ""Preparedness Pedagogies" and Race: An Interdisciplinary Approach," this article explores the racialized culture of civil defence in the UK whilst also critiquing the world of higher education. The ethnographic artefacts of interviews,…

Feedback is essential to guide students towards expected performance goals. The usefulness of teacher feedback on improving communication skills (CS) has been well documented. It has been proposed that self-assessment and peer-feedback has an equally important role to play in enhancing learning. This is the focus of this study. Objectively…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to give a critical assessment of a study designed to investigate the potential of a new method for teaching HRD students about performance appraisal. It is argued that this approach is in the vanguard of developments in IT and learning. Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes the form of an explorative study…

This paper describes an assessment of a web-based interview simulation designed to teach empathetic helping skills. The system includes an animated character acting as a client and responses designed to recreate a simulated role-play, a common assessment method used for teaching these skills. The purpose of this study was to determine whether…

An interview guide for children and adolescents, which is based on systemic therapy, has recently been added to the collection of published instruments for psychological interviews. This article aims to establish the amount of information gained during a psychological investigation using the Systemic-based Interview Guide rather than an intuitive,…

Reacting to the Past is a pedagogy involving collaborative role playing in history-based games over a semester. This article presents results from a systematic assessment of this novel pedagogy conducted in 3 phases following student focus group interviews. Interviews indicated that the method was generally popular compared with traditional…

Based on a categorization of simulation and gaming barriers developed in a previous study, this work seeks to explore in greater depth the composition and nature of these obstacles. It examines the interrelationships between the barriers and the impact of other contextual factors in the pedagogic environment. A series of in-depth interviews were…

This study analyzes the use of role-play as an elicitation device for the evaluation of a nonnative speaker's oral language. In this analysis of role-play as a methodology to generate data for assessment purposes, the study examines the role that interlocutors play in two types of interactions. It raises questions about the validity and…

This article undertakes a detailed case study of "The Campaign", a teaching and learning innovation in media and communications that uses an online educational role-play. The case study draws on the qualitative analysis of classroom observations, online communications and semi-structured interviews, employing an interpretive approach…