Play and games as foreign language teaching and learning tools: Historical snapshots

Abstract

Nowadays, “gamification” emphasizes a certain vision of playfulness applied to education. Therefore, it is pertinent to review the ways in which the interest in pedagogical games and play has been expressed throughout history in the foreign language teaching and learning field. In this article, the playful vision promoted by five unrecognized language teaching authors is evoked, from the 1st to the 18th century of our era, underlining how each approach is articulated with its historical, social, cultural — and even economic and religious — contexts.