Inclusive digital games in the

transcultural communicative
classroom
Carolyn Blume

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Incorporating inclusive games and game-related tasks enables learners
to explore issues of gender and sexuality in the EFL classroom, while
simultaneously developing competences relevant specifically to language
learning. Carefully selected and didactically prepared games and gaming
activities that highlight marginalised genders and sexualities can facilitate
reflection of learners’ own identities. In including these games, teachers
contribute to a better understanding of alternative identities and cultures that
are created and shaped in online and offline worlds, and where transcultural
communicative competence is required to navigate these settings. This article,
relying on insights drawn from analytical play, discusses how gameplaying that
thematically centres queer personae can foster identity development as an
essential aspect of transcultural communicative competence. It also highlights
ways in which teachers can utilize games in the EFL classroom to facilitate
the inclusion of language learners who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
queer/questioning, inter- or asexual (LGBTQIA*).

Introduction Heteronormativity is pervasive in both formal EFL materials and in

English language contacts habituated by learners in informal contexts. In
both textbooks and digital games, for example, heterosexual stereotypes
and norms dominate, perpetuating the invisibility of gameplaying by
large swaths of the population (Moore 2020). For example, only one in
ten references to digital gaming in Flemish EFL coursebooks refers to
a ‘girl gamer’ (Van Dyck 2019). In one of these texts, the protagonist’s
mother bemoans the cost of his games, expressing hope that a girlfriend
will distract him from this expensive hobby (Van Dyck ibid.: 192–93).
This statement does double duty in terms of establishing norms,
simultaneously characterizing females as non-gamers who distract boys
from their pastimes and erasing individuals who are not heteronormative
from both gaming and intimate relationships in the adolescent world.
This explicit construction of heteronormativity, i.e. the assumption that
the heterosexual experience is universal (Van Dyck ibid.), is a relatively
common portrayal in both designed EFL materials (Paiz 2019) and in
gaming worlds (Shaw 2014). It is problematic in both contexts, excluding

ELT Journal Volume 75/2 April 2021; doi:10.1093/elt/ccaa084  181

© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
 those players who do not reflect these identities and constructing an
image of a heterosexual English-speaking world in which binary genders
have only stereotypical interests.
Using selected vernacular digital games as multimodal texts that explicitly
question these norms in the EFL classroom can serve as a counterbalance.
By recognizing a wider variety of ways of ‘being’, a curriculum with games
and game-related activities with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/
questioning, inter- or asexual (LGBTQIA*) characters invites all learners
to incorporate more authentic identities in the language learning process,
increasing investment (cf. Paiz 2019). Moreover, digital games that are
inclusive in terms of gender and sexuality foster reflection of one’s own
identity, laying the foundation for understanding others’ identities. At the

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same time, these games open the classroom door to reveal a fuller and
more nuanced vision of the world, further strengthening learners’ ability
to navigate in it as competent transcultural communicators (Thorne,
Sauro, and Smith 2015). Learners gain competences in using a range of
semiotic resources to communicate both interculturally and in hybridized
cultural spaces in digital worlds.
This article discusses how games that explicitly feature LGBTQIA* themes
can be used to facilitate the exploration of all language learners’ identities,
regardless of gender or sexual identity. In doing so, the language
learning classroom becomes a more inclusive space for learners who are
frequently marginalised, while simultaneously creating opportunities for
all learners to question these exclusions. Given the nature of games as
multimodal texts and game-related activities as multiliteracy practices,
inclusive digital games can broaden a curriculum that tends to define both
language competence and gender norms in narrow ways. Expanding these
definitions opens the process of language learning and language using
up to a wider range of interlocutors. Finally, digital gaming regularly
transpires in a transcultural space. Hence, using games in the classroom
can help facilitate language learners’ competence to participate in these
spaces, an essential aspect of contemporary language learning. Including,
but also going beyond issues of gender and sexuality, transcultural
communicative skills enable learners to effectively interact with wide-
ranging forms of diversity that go beyond simple categorizations of
individual and other identities (Alter 2015). Using several gender-sensitive
digital games explored via analytical play (Aarseth 2003) as examples, this
article describes specific ways of incorporating these games in the EFL
classroom before concluding with an examination of the implications for
teachers interested in adopting such an approach.

The performative Discovering oneself and performatively enacting identity is a focal theme
construction in language learning classes, even when this is not always explicitly
of identity in addressed (Paiz 2019). This begins for many EFL learners in early grades
EFL classrooms and early stages of language learning with colour and food preferences,
and online and extends to describing one’s familial and interpersonal relationships.
Even young learners are confronted with heteronormativity when, for
example, there is no discursive space to include same-sex parents or
grandparents, as can happen with traditional activities that ask learners
to construct family trees. In many middle years or early intermediate

182 Carolyn Blume

 EFL curricula, discussions regarding hobbies, leisure pursuits, and
relationships coincide with puberty, when questions of identity are
paramount (König et al. 2016). For learners who cannot comfortably
reveal their personal or familial relationships, linguistic dangers lurk
behind these thematic stumbling blocks.
With the large number of language learning activities that require learners
to implicitly or explicitly ask who they are, employing digital games
centering on the issues of LGBTQIA* youth may create an inclusive
space for grappling with questions of identity and how it is constructed
through language. While not focusing specifically on gaming, Thorne et al.
(2015) point out that teaching language reception and production with
co-constructed or interactive digital texts recognizes the performative and

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multilayered nature of language learners’ situated and categorical identities
that are involved in understanding and adopting new semiotic resources.
These identities, of which gender and sexuality are one component, are
increasingly constructed and performed in online worlds (Eklund 2011),
and using games that focus on the identities of LGBTQIA* characters
can highlight the intertwined nature of language, identity, and gender in
digital contexts. The game Coming Out Simulator (Figure 1), for example,
focuses on the narrator’s experience addressing his bisexual identity with
his parents. The game, with simple mechanics, technical requirements,
and storyline, is playable in one class period and lends itself as a model for
exploring identity, regardless of whether sexuality is a focus.
Many games and gameplaying activities contribute to self-selected
communities to which language learners aspire, opening the door to
the possibilities of what ‘could be’ in terms of identity and a sense of
belonging. Many popular games enable player-learners to engage in
non-conformative gender behaviours, constructing alter egos that allow
them to explore life as, for example, a virtual trans person (Shaw 2014).
However, this type of undetermined character sexuality frequently reverts
to heterosexual norms (Eklund 2011) or is implemented in ways that
are intended to mock or exclude certain individuals. Offering learners
games where the fundamental premise is one of homo-, bi-, pan-, or
asexuality facilitates representation while maintaining the language
learning affordances and opportunities for identity performance that
are attributed to more familiar products. Intertwining linguistic puns
with commentaries on masculinity and relationships more generally,
for example, Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator (Figure 2) is a game
suited to interrogating language and the degree to which sexuality shapes
identity in the game and in society. The familiar relationship between
the single-parent ‘Dad’ and his adolescent daughter that are the centre
of the game make visible various familial constellations as well as the
multiple identities of parents and caregivers. Experienced from an
individualised avatar’s point of view (called a ‘Dadsona’—a portmanteau

figure 1
QR code for Coming Out
Simulator (Case 2014)

Inclusive digital games in the transcultural communicative classroom 183

figure 2
QR code for Dream Daddy:
A Dad Dating Simulator
(Game Grumps 2017)

of ‘Dad’ and ‘persona’), the game involves navigating single parenthood

as a homosexual adult. The game turns conventional dating simulations
and narratives about single parents on their head with mature themes
and some sexual language, but less sexually explicit content than more
common games of this genre. Thematizing the issue of how a person
portrays themself to others, in multiple and differing ways, the award-

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winning game allows for conversations about identity performance and
projection.

The relationship As Thorne et al. (2015) point out, identity online is constructed, not
between identity as a solitary activity, but in communication with others as part of the
and transcultural sociocultural process of interaction. The games discussed here are
communicative technically single-player games. However, they are equally playable with
competence a partner in a classroom setting, and thus are well-suited to facilitating
interaction as decisions are made in tandem, meaning is created, and
reflection takes place. Moreover, as with other games, they allow for
related activities in online worlds. It is through this online interaction
around games that most gaming communities develop and flourish.
These spaces are multiply diverse, bringing together a variety of language
users with identities from myriad cultures, in an additional cultural
space. This space reflects and shapes the languages, identities, and
cultures the participants bring with them. Performing identity in this
space requires transcultural communicative competence, as interactions
take place among interlocutors with widely disparate written and spoken
vocabularies, grammars, registers, gestures, and visual resources, and give
rise to new permutations of these. Navigating these situations to perform
and develop their identity requires each interactant to be a competent
transcultural communicator, which Blell and Doff (2014: 86) describe as a
person who
opens him-/herself up emotionally and cognitively to more dynamic
and mobile cultural situations and stories at the same time, including
overlapping or sometimes quickly alternating scenarios. Learners
experience and value themselves and others as ‘floating’ identities
(construction/deconstruction) which can open up new surfaces for
understanding similarities or differences. … Furthermore, he/she needs
profound competences in decoding or producing all sorts of texts,
multimodal texts included (a video clip, a blog, a Facebook entry etc.).
Transcultural communicative competence emphasizes critical awareness
of varied cultural practices and perspectives, global issues, and
multiliteracies. In addition, it presupposes an understanding of identities
and cultures as both multifaceted and malleable, neither wholly bounded
nor wholly arbitrary. Finally, it seeks to transcend the binary dualism
of traditional models of intercultural communicative competence that
emphasize understanding between the self and the other by highlighting

184 Carolyn Blume

 the complexity of both these individual identities and cultural norms
(Blell and Doff ibid.). This competence emphasizes the ability to interact
meaningfully for a range of purposes, in a variety of online and offline
settings, with a large number of fluid yet culturally mediated individual
identities and constellations. A successful language learner is thus one
who is able to participate in a number of transcultural communities, such
as game worlds, by enacting an identity that reflects both who they are
and how they wish to be seen by others. They do so by using semiotic
resources that convey this identity or these identities successfully. While
analyses regarding the utility, necessity, and practicability of incorporating
transcultural text types in EFL have begun to emerge (Alter 2015), the
role of digital games as text types that foster transcultural communicative

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competence requires closer attention.

Transcultural Like the wider cultures within which they exist, games tend to be
competence in complex worlds with overlapping messages that convey a variety of
digital worlds norms, including, but not limited to, those relating to gender and
sexuality. Exchanges between game characters frequently expose players
to a diversity of perspectives necessary for developing transcultural
communicative competence; among game players, exchanges take place
that reflect individual identities interacting in online social spaces. Games
that incorporate complex personae, including those with underrepresented
gender and sexual identities, can contribute to the development of this
transcultural communicative competence in much the same way as more
traditional ‘texts’, by highlighting various forms of diversity (Eklund
2011). For example, the Spring trilogy (Figure 3) shares details of life as
experienced by a trans woman in Japan, offering players insights into a
unique national subculture. The game is intended for an individual player.
However, the possibility for pre- and post-play conversations, both within
the classroom and beyond, is facilitated by the active fan communities that
critique and creatively adapt the game. These ‘conversations’ offer myriad
opportunities to construct relevance for players and establish connections
to multiple goals of the contemporary language learning classroom. Given
the relative invisibility of trans personae even in queer EFL pedagogy

figure 3
One Night, Hot Springs (npckc
2018)

Inclusive digital games in the transcultural communicative classroom 185

 (Paiz 2019), this game provides a unique opportunity to consider
intersections of culture, language, and gender identity.
In addition to complexifying images of the target culture, such depictions
can help learners locate themselves in relation to these worlds.
Presentations of gender and sexuality in English language games can
communicate, for example, the idea that some (sub)cultures are tolerant
of such diversity, which may be especially welcoming to EFL learners
who face a lack of acceptance or even persecution in more conservative
contexts (Paiz 2019). Fan fiction sites (e.g. https://www.fanfiction.net/)
in particular have emerged as affinity spaces in which translingual and
LGBTQIA* participants experience validation for their identities (Thorne
et al. 2015; Dym, Brubaker, and Fiesler 2018). These sites allow for

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the kind of intimate identification that, in less accommodating literary
genres, can lead readers to disassociate from protagonists who seem too
far-removed from their own frames of reference (Alter 2015). Although
many fan communities and game interactions in popular games have
gained attention for the misogyny, sexism, racism, and linguistic
chauvinism that are frequently found there, examples of positive
transcultural communicative interactions are also well documented,
and contribute to the construction of online communities (Collister
2016). The popularity of particular games across socioeconomic,
generational, and linguistic divides frequently necessitates transcultural
communicative competence for progress in the game. Practices such as
localization, in which games are adapted for other cultural audiences,
and fansubbing, in which players serve as amateur translators, require
sophisticated linguistic and intercultural knowledge (Vazquez-Calvo
et al. 2019). In many cases, these practices lead to adaptations that
construct or highlight previously absent or implicit LGBTQIA* elements
(Dym et al. 2018). Moreover, these games and their attendant texts can
contribute to complex representations of marginalised people who do
not only encounter problems, but who ‘experience fantastic adventures
for their own sake’ (Alter 2015: 17). With heightened awareness of (in)
tolerance, games that centre LGBTQIA* lives and discourses may be
more sensitive to issues of intersectionality than texts that assume a
heteronormative frame of reference. In Butterfly Soup (Figure 4), the
narrative centres on the burgeoning intimate relationships among four
teenagers in a high school in California, and is first and foremost a story
of adolescent gender and sexuality. However, as the story progresses,
the players are challenged to understand the cultural norms that exist
among Indian-American families regarding individuality. More generally,
the game alludes to socioeconomic and class differences, commenting
on contradictory portrayals of American high schools and highlighting
the characters’ unfamiliarity with some musical paraphernalia. Finally,
the game’s use of the protagonists’ multiple languages uniquely reflects
personal multilingualism and code-switching as a core element of the
game. As in the aforementioned Spring trilogy, these elements work
against issues of linguistic exclusion in game spaces and function
to construct complex identities, partially reflecting the wide range of
linguistic repertoires found in transcultural communicative settings
(Thorne et al. 2015).

186 Carolyn Blume

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figure 4
Butterfly Soup (Lei 2017)

Classroom Incorporating digital games in the EFL classroom can be pedagogically

implications and and pragmatically challenging, regardless of the content. Teachers may
recommendations encounter resistance concerning the use of digital games in a formal
language learning setting, regardless of topic. Given that addressing
gender and sexuality may create additional consternation, teachers
may need to consider alternative ways to challenge heteronormativity.
Alternatively, it may prove advantageous to connect unique text types,
such as games, with topics that are equally seen as unusual, such
as LGBTQIA*-related themes, as a way of developing a critical EFL
classroom (cf. Paiz 2019).
Regardless, teachers need to strike a balance between making visible
the uniquely queer experiences, identities, and communities that games
proffer and identifying specific language learning foci that transcend,
but do not erase, issues of gender and sexuality. Ignoring the aspects of
game characters’ and participants’ (auto)biographies that relate to gender
and sexuality may rob learners of opportunities to invest their language
learning selves in the formal classroom setting (Paiz ibid.). For these
reasons, using games as a foil for debates about the validity of identities,
whether they be about LGBTQIA* or gaming identities, should be avoided
(Jones 2018). Teachers need to be prepared to address both why games
are compelling media, and why the inclusion of LGBTQIA* content in
this context is valid. Considering the historical development of LGBTQIA*
rights or analysing the language used to talk about queer people and
groups can provide thematic contextualization as well as a language focus.
Advanced language learners could examine parallels between discourses
relating to games and queer identity, sharing as they do significant
scepticism (Paiz 2019).
It is precisely this kind of critical approach that is necessary when
explicating games as one type of multimodal text. Focusing on common
themes of identity, belonging, and familial expectations in games such
as Coming Out Simulator and Butterfly Soup, EFL learners are compelled
to recognize both the uniqueness and the universality of the individual
experiences made palpable in these games without endorsing or
repudiating the bisexuality in them. Learners who analyse the women

Inclusive digital games in the transcultural communicative classroom 187

 portrayed in Butterfly Soup, elaborating on them after each chapter of the
game, will ultimately become acquainted with complex figures who are
characterised in subtle ways. Creating a visual depiction of the room of
Nicky Case, the first-person narrator of Coming Out Simulator, requires
learners to engage with the multiple facets of his situated identity as
revealed through the game.
Engaging learners with the relationships presented in the game by
rewriting dialogues between a playable character and a non-player
character fosters perspective-taking, as well as specific language skills that
can focus on specific word fields or pragmatic language features. These
activities highlight the underlying questions about what is both specific
and universal regarding both queer experiences and gaming (Shaw 2014).

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It is not necessary that players, or learners, identify with every aspect
of a character in a game, much as they do not relate to every classmate
or every interlocutor online. In fact, being able to distinguish between
oneself and others is an essential component of identity development.
Games that feature LGBTQIA* characters offer heteronormative learners
opportunities for recognizing both their similarities and differences with
these protagonists (Shaw ibid.) as much as they offer queer learners the
rare chance to be visible in the EFL classroom (Paiz 2019). They do this
in a transcultural space, a virtual world more authentic than many offline
environments.
Likewise, focusing on the traditional literary elements, and their
reimagining in digital contexts, can validate learners’ performative
identities with digital media. In the exploration game Gone Home
(Figure 5) or the interactive fiction game Birdland (Figure 6), for example,
learners can map narrative structures, including story arcs and narrator
perspectives. Learners read these games much as they would read
monomodal or bimodal texts and complete pre-reading, guided reading,
and post-reading activities that explore the games’ use of literary devices
such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, and symbolism in both visual and text-
based forms. Because activities requiring learners to move in or out of the
game world can decrease engagement, analysis should be reserved for pre-
or post-play phases. It should also be open-ended enough to accommodate

figure5
Gone Home (Fulbright Company
2013)

188 Carolyn Blume

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figure 6
Birdland (Hennessy 2015)

multiple story paths and various learner interests. Learner analyses of

video-based walk-throughs or game commentaries as unique literacy
forms can contribute to a sophisticated awareness of game reception and
literary critique, as well as provide access to authentic language usages.
Applying conventional analytical approaches to gender-inclusive games
underscores the ways in which these games and gameplaying are valid, yet
disruptive, phenomena.
Identifying strategies that enable learners to successfully participate in
these constructive processes facilitates access to the social spaces that
are sites of identity performance and negotiation (Thorne et al. 2015).
Explicitly teaching learners metalinguistic strategies to manage potential
problems in unwelcoming spaces, by, for example, avoiding voice
chat or shifting registers, offers relevant communicative strategies for
language learners. This may be especially helpful to learners who may
be targets of bias due to perceived foreignness, gender non-conformity,
or sexual orientation. Teaching learners to navigate these forums or
chats empowers them to manage their participation in spaces that are
not necessarily welcoming, but nevertheless valuable to them (Collister
2016). Alternatively, fan fiction sites, such as Archive of Our Own
(https://archiveofourown.org/), can provide safer spaces for learners
searching for like-minded individuals. Learners who can navigate both
wary and welcoming online worlds control their identity, rather than

Inclusive digital games in the transcultural communicative classroom 189

 being controlled by it, and demonstrate sophisticated transcultural
communicative competence.
Contemporary multiliteracy practices emphasize the selection,
appropriation, remixing, and recreation of existing media and medial
forms in new ways. In this context, learners can use relatively simple
games such as Coming Out Simulator and Birdland as models, realizing
prequels, sequels, or spin-offs with comparable tools, such as Twine
(https://twinery.org/) or, for more practiced authors, Ren’Py (https://
www.renpy.org/). These require learners to invest themselves in all phases
of the creation process, include all of the semiotic resources at their
disposal, and construct visual and textual interaction with the reader-
player. Learners can likewise contribute to the already extant fan fiction

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that exists for Dream Daddy: A Dating Simulator (https://dreamdaddy.
gamepedia.com/Dream_Daddy_Wiki), participate in interactive boards for
Butterfly Soup that include Wikis, polls, chats, quizzes, picture analyses,
and fan art (https://aminoapps.com/c/butterflysou177/info/), or create
their own walk-throughs. These activities lend themselves to collaborative
work that incorporate written and visual resources, reflecting the nature of
multiliteracy practices that require both an understanding of the self and
of others.
Any inclusion of these games needs to address more traditional language
skills that are foundational to the language learning classroom. While
teachers may be hesitant to include games that have non-target language
components or idiosyncratic forms, these reservations can be addressed
at multiple levels. Conceptually, an understanding of varieties of English
and non-standard usages is an important element of transcultural
communicative competence, especially when connected with a critical
awareness of English as a lingua franca, and issues of power and
participation associated with prescriptivist notions of English correctness.
These topics offer authentic connections to how language is likewise used
to include or exclude queer individuals and communities, and how these
persons and groups reappropriate language as a source of identity and
representation (Paiz 2019). Examining the language in game-related chats
and forums can be a means of examining both linguistic skills and how
identities are constructed and navigated in these arenas.
In terms of focused language skills, empirical studies have documented
both the vocabulary growth associated with various forms of gameplaying
as well as the use of syntactically complex forms in gameplay. Such
studies provide strong evidence that this type of authentic language
exposure contributes to the development of communicative competence
in transcultural realms (Thorne, Fischer, and Xu 2012). These research
results suggest that much of the concern regarding non-standard English
in gameplay and game-associated activities may reflect underlying biases
rather than pragmatic concerns.

Conclusion Despite the challenges associated with including digital gaming in

educational settings, the contributions of games to both language
learning, and gender and sexual identity development are well established.
However, it is important to remember the limitations of including games

190 Carolyn Blume

 in the EFL classroom. Although games and gaming practices show an
increasing awareness of LGBTQIA* themes and players, individual
products and many gaming communities continue to be unwelcoming
places for ‘atypical’ players (Eklund 2011). Moreover, many games, while
being progressively more sensitive to gender and sexuality, frequently
continue to ignore issues of intersectionality and marginalise other
aspects of identity (Shaw 2014). No one game is wholly representative, and
an inclusive EFL curriculum, with or without games, needs to critically
thematize these silences. While such an approach can be empowering
and foster transcultural communicative competence, these outcomes do
not happen automatically. Including games in the classroom can lead to
disenfranchisement, not only among avid gamers, if learners sense their

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authentic interests are being co-opted for inauthentic purposes.
Gameplaying constitutes a significant element in shaping identity. It does
this through language, in interaction with others, and in turn, shapes the
language available to the player. Access to identities that represent a broad
range of genders and sexualities enables learners to develop the language
needed to understand these ways of being, both for themselves and in
interaction with others. In light of the ubiquity of games and gaming
practices, language instruction needs to reflect the process of identity-
making and shaping that are semiotically represented in, and constructed
in interaction with, these games.
Final version received December 2020

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192 Carolyn Blume
The author
Carolyn Blume is a junior professor for teaching
and learning with digital media in the Dortmund
Competence Centre for Teacher Education and
Research (DoKoLL) at the Technical University
Dortmund, Germany. Her research and teaching
focus on the preparation of EFL teachers for inclusive
settings and on the use of digital media in foreign
language learning.
Email: Carolyn.blume@tu-dortmund.de
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