A Review of the Impact of Board Games on Second Language Acquisition
Main Article Content
Keywords
second language acquisition, board games, game-based learning, task-based language teaching
Abstract
Board games, as a highly interactive form of activity, have attracted increasing scholarly attention in the field of second language acquisition (SLA) research in recent years. This paper presents a systematic literature review of relevant research, examining the theoretical foundations and empirical developments in five core dimensions: the Interaction Hypothesis and negotiation of meaning; communication strategies; task-based language teaching; game-based learning; and motivation and affective factors. The review demonstrates that board games can elicit authentic communicative behaviors in naturalistic contexts, effectively increasing opportunities for comprehensible input and output, facilitating negotiation of meaning, and enhancing learners' intrinsic motivation and affective engagement through game-based mechanisms. At the same time, existing research is characterized by limitations, including small sample sizes, insufficient diversity of game types examined, and a lack of longitudinal assessment of long-term effects. This review aims to integrate existing findings, provide a reference framework for the design and implementation of game-based approaches in second language teaching practice, and identify promising directions for future research.
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