Gaming till you drop: The representation of video games and gaming disorder in contemporary German EFL textbooks

Video games are en vogue. They play an important role in many teenagers’ lives and, for that reason, have also lately received more attention in the context of school education, including English language education. Yet, while English language research continuously points out the great potential of video games for language learning, they have hardly found their way into actual English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms in Germany. The present study explores one reason behind this absence of video games from EFL teaching practices: With the help of a thematic discourse analysis, it examines the negative reputation video games still obtain in current German EFL textbooks. More precisely, it will be shown that video games are often represented through the discursive lens of gaming disorder. Textbooks display digital games as a matter of addiction and mental illness and, as such, they serve as important gatekeepers in the EFL classroom that potentially keep teachers away from perceiving video games as valuable learning materials.