Tell me a story!: jogo de cartas digitais para o desenvolvimento da comunicação oral em língua inglesa no ensino superior

Abstract

This thesis aims to develop the game Tell me a story! as the Professional Master's project in Teaching in Creativity and Innovation in Higher Education Methodologies Graduate Program at Federal University of Pará (UFPA). This digital game is a resource that aims to foster oral communication of either English students from English Language and Literature Courses or other educational contexts, such as basic education. The research has its methodological foundation in Design Thinking approach (CAVALCANTI; FILATRO, 2016) and Game Design approach (ROLLING; ADAMS, 2003; MITGUTSCH; ALVARADO, 2012; SCHELL, 2015) and it presents a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive approach. It was carried out in the Língua Inglesa II course, in the English Language and Literature Course at Federal University of Pará, Belém campus, during remote teaching format. The research participants were 20 (twenty) students, of which only 3 (three) of them completed all the stages of the game development. The educational product (game) was validated by a Panel of Experts, which was composed of two invited experts on instructional material development for virtual learning environments and on English Language Learning and Teaching. Each of them has experience in one of the fields applied in this study as the validation criteria. From the testing and validation stages, Tell me a story! showed to decrease language communication tension due to its playful features; it fostered vocabulary related to everyday life, thus encouraging students to communicate orally about familiar subjects; it promoted the interaction between students of different language skills; and it allowed students to be protagonists, autonomous and decision-makers about their own strategies in the game and in their oral narrative building. Thus, this master’s thesis and the educational game developed from it contribute to pre-service and in-service English teachers and teachers from other educational contexts, who aim to design and apply digital games in their classroom through Design thinking e Game design due to foster oral communication in the target language. In this sense, the potential to create educational and pedagogical alternatives belongs to all educators.