Phrasal-Quest: Designing a Game-Based Storytelling Approach to Teach English Verbal Multi-Word Expressions.

Since ancient times storytelling has represented the oldest form of communication, thus constituting the original teaching method and has developed over the centuries in many different forms, such as audio-books, engaging mobile apps and interactive digital games. As a consequence, many researchers in CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) have stated that gaming software offers great opportunities for second language learners, mainly because of their motivational and interactive aspect but also due to their characteristic of transforming learners from passive to active agents by making them able to acquire new skills and consolidate their present knowledge. In the context of English as a second language (ESL), one of the most crucial aspects is represented by verbal Multi-word expressions (VMWEs), in particular, Phrasal verbs (PVs), whose mastery is fundamental for a learner’s language proficiency. Nevertheless, especially when lacked in their mother tongue, ESL learners tend to avoid using PVs, thus preventing their language fluency. In the light of CALL and Cooperative Learning (CL) approaches and the P21’s Framework, this paper aims at presenting an ongoing experiment on the teaching of English PVs to Italian secondary school students, based on the development of a class-interactive role-playing computer game called PhrasalQuest by using a role-playing engine called EVO-RPGE[5]. The game is based on an original story set in London, dealing with a friendship between an Italian and an English girl and the chosen PVs are those related to food and cooking. The story progressively reveals itself in the virtual environment and the students are involved in and interact with the game through their personal Smartphones. Accordingly, several quests related to the chosen PVs gradually appear during the story-narration so that students could focus their attention on them by reflecting on their meaning and understanding their usage. Moreover, the story has been syntactically and grammatically constructed according to CEFR (The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) levels for secondary school students (A1-A2), with the aim to make them learn and fix other grammatical structures. The idea of this paper is also to respond to today’s students’ need for digital citizenship skills by creating an innovative instructional product.