Challenges and solutions to implementing digital game-based language learning during the Covid-19 Pandemic / Nadya Supian, Tan Wilson and Cheah Kok Sung

COVID-19 thrust educators and students into a sudden shift to online teaching and learning, resulting in an absence of physical interaction between the lecturers and students, leading to increased potential for poor engagement among learners. Prior to the pandemic, higher education institutions had begun incorporating games and simulations to prepare future professionals for the working world, as current research indicates that games, especially simulation games promote greater engagement in the learning process. However, although GBLL has been successfully implemented in classrooms globally, it is still relatively new in Malaysia, underscoring a paucity of research on local higher educational institutions and GBLL. This exploratory qualitative research investigates the challenges and solutions for implementing digital GBLL in Malaysia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using The SIMS 4 “Get to Work” expansion pack, 10 undergraduate students from a local private university utilized the game during an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course to learn business vocabulary incidentally as they set up a virtual business, hire staff, set profit margins as well as select advertising channels. Findings revealed that while GBLL was useful for incidental vocabulary learning, the main challenges to its successful implementation lay in the perception and attitudes of lecturers and students, as well as facilitating conditions such as technological readiness and availability of equipment. Possible solutions include introducing DGBLL to ESP courses in institutions of higher learning to generate more awareness of its uses and potential and providing more technological and infrastructural support.