Abstract:

Gamification, or the application of game mechanics and strategies to non-game environments, is being widely used in secondary and higher education contexts as a way of increasing motivation and developing knowledge, skills and attitudes more actively in learners, while Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) is nowadays a mainstream methodology in many academic institutions, since it benefits from the synergy of teaching both language and subject matter simultaneously and with a dual integrated focus. This paper discusses the theoretical background, the rationale and some practical implications of a teaching innovation project which aims at implementing gamification in a context where academic subjects in a Civil Engineering program are taught in the English language. In other words, gamification and CLIL are used together in order to enhance the learning process in a project carried out by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia and the Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain and where a subject taught in English is partly gamified, in its practice and assessment stages. The aim of this reflective research is to discuss the project from a pedagogical standpoint and, building on this pedagogical reflection, to propose a general methodology which may serve to integrate gamification in other similar CLIL higher education environments. First, the project and its context are briefly presented. Second, the theoretical rationale for the teaching innovation is discussed and both gamification and CLIL are explained. Then, a pedagogical reflection of the project is developed in order to, finally, propose a methodological procedure, founded on a theoretical framework, that could be applied when implementing gamification in other CLIL contexts.

Keywords:

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), gamification, active methodologies, motivation.