Fostering critical thinking and motivation through digital escape rooms: preliminary observations

Abstract

[EN] This paper reports our preliminary observations of a pilot project carried out from February to April 2019 with a group of students learning Spanish at the University of Central Missouri and students learning English at the University of León. The project combines challenging escape room activities with intercultural and interlinguistic interaction in a virtual exchange. Students learned of the premise of the activity through a video that set the context in a dystopian future with an authoritarian dictator who had hidden and controlled access to knowledge. The contextual narrative also explained that a hacker was leaking information that the students could retrieve. Therefore, they needed to collaborate with their partners in order to save the world by solving different types of enigmas that involved knowledge about geography, culture, and language. In addition to these problemsolving activities, they were also required to discuss cultural topics and comment on different habits, traditions, and stereotypes. This combination might enhance the students’ motivation, foster their communication skills, and help them develop critical thinking skills and learn more about each other’s language, country, and culture.