Abstract:

Game jams—intensive videogame creation events that usually involve teams completing prototypes within 24 to 72 hours—are an opportunity for learning and developing a variety of skills. These range from planning, scoping, and time management; to design and software development skills; to teamwork and communication. This is why student game jams have become a popular learning tool in curricula that focus on game design, software development, digital media, but also beyond these fields. While game jams' effects on certain skills and competencies (such as "hard" skills in STEM) have been subject to researchers' scrutiny for a number of years now, one of the less studied aspects is the effects game jam participation has on students' language and communication skills. And yet, this is a promising direction to investigate. Interlanguage and intercultural communication is crucial to future game and software professionals, given the internationalized nature of today's IT sector and the emphasis it places on communication; and game jams appear to be a productive environment for participants to practice and improve their communication and linguistic skills, particularly in environments where they must rely on languages other than their mother tongue.

Building on an exploratory paper by White et al. (2019), this paper presents the results of a pilot study on foreign language and intercultural communication in the context of game jams, based on a recent student game jam jointly organized by partner universities from Russia and Estonia. More specifically, the paper investigates the Russian-speaking participants' reflections on the use of a foreign language (English) in the game jam, and connects them to the students' perceptions of the role of English in their professional development and teamwork. Results suggest that there is broad recognition of the importance of English in the game industry, and students are open to creating games in the foreign language, with many choosing to do so despite finding themselves in a fully Russian-speaking team. At the same time some, many participants were ambiguous toward the use of English in the game jam, with some expressing preference for events in their mother tongue. Communicating with the international speakers in English was also reported to be challenging, particularly in oral Q&A sessions. The paper reflects on how the implementation of the game jam in question may have contributed to some of the difficulties reported by participants, and outlines suggestions on how similar events in the future could better facilitate intercultural communication in a foreign language.

Keywords:

Game jams, soft skills, communication, foreign languages, game design, STEM.