This paper investigates how 'interculturality' is reflected upon by University students involved in the online simulation game Megacities, which was played in English as a lingua franca. Unversity students participated in the game in the summer term of 2021 and their Zoom interactions were recorded for analysis. Results show that students display their own understandings of 'interculturality'. One of the main findings is that 'national cultures' seem to provide a strong background against which students evaluate their own and others' performances in the game. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of (B)ELF user's values and perceptions.
This paper investigates how 'interculturality' is built and, mostly, reflected upon by University students involved in an online simulation game in English as a lingua franca. The simulation game, called Megacities (Bolten 2015), engages students in a series of talks and cross-team negotiations whose aim is to create a development plan for an emerging city. Thirty-eight students from two higher-education institutions participated in the game in the summer term of 2021 and their Zoom interactions were recorded for analysis. In the talk, I will mostly focus on the reflections students were asked to undertake in the last round of the game. They looked back at their participation trying to draw interpretations about what happened. In doing so, students are shown to display different identities connected to underlying language ideologies. They also display their own understandings of 'interculturality'. One of the main findings is that 'national cultures' seem to provide a strong background against which students evaluate their own and others' performances in the game, which partially challenges theoretical orientations that avoid such essentialist views of culture. These findings are regarded as having an impact on (B)ELF studies. They can, for instance, contribute to a better understanding of (B)ELF user's values and perceptions, which, in turn, can lead to new understandings of 'community' (Jenkins 2015).
References:
Bolten, J. (2015). Megacities: ein Planspiel für virtuelle Lernungebungen. www.intercultura-campus.org
Jenkins, J. (2015). Repositioning English and multilingualism in English as a Lingua Franca. Englishes in Practice, 2(3), 49-85.
