ISSN: 2435-2349

The Ludic You Love cover

❤️ The Ludic You Love

Welcome to the special issue The Ludic You Love.

This collection brings together educators, researchers, and practitioners who share games, activities, texts, and playful experiences that have made a lasting impact on their teaching and learning. From board games and storytelling tools to digital games and creative classroom practices, each contribution explores a particular ludic object and reflects on its educational potential.

Together, these papers offer a snapshot of the diverse ways play continues to inspire language learning communities around the world.

We’d like to thank special issue editors Robb McCollum and Ken Tran for their hard work making this happen, James York for formatting, and Martin Sedaghat for the front cover artwork.

📥 Download the complete special issue

🎲 Contents

🐍 Snakes and Ladders: Roll, Reflect, Remix!

Jonathan deHaan

Read the paper

deHaan, J. (2026). Snakes and Ladders: Roll, Reflect, Remix! Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 1–11. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🎲 Rory’s Story Cubes: An Analog Storytelling Game Engine

Mark Johnson

Read the paper

Johnson, M. (2026). Rory’s Story Cubes: An analog storytelling game engine. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 12–22. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🌙 Teaching Descriptive Adjectives Using Du Ký (Dream Adventure)

Trần Lê Khang

Read the paper

Trần, L. K. (2026). Teaching descriptive adjectives using Du Ký (Dream Adventure). Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 23–31. DOI TO BE ADDED.


👁️ Seeing Words Differently: Using Dobble for Vocabulary Learning

Monika van der Velden

Read the paper

van der Velden, M. (2026). Seeing words differently: Using Dobble for vocabulary learning. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 32–38. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🔵 Teaching Nouns Using Things in Rings and the Concept of Venn Diagram

Trần Lê Khang

Read the paper

Trần, L. K. (2026). Teaching nouns using Things in Rings and the concept of Venn diagram. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 39–46. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🏀 Around the World: A Basketball-Inspired Language Game

Zachary Lubbers

Read the paper

Lubbers, Z. (2026). Around the World: A basketball-inspired language game. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 47–50. DOI TO BE ADDED.


💰 Teaching Financial Literacy Using EZWorld

Trần Lê Khang

Read the paper

Trần, L. K. (2026). Teaching financial literacy using EZWorld. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 51–60. DOI TO BE ADDED.


📖 Picture This: Wordless Picturebooks in the Language Classroom

Martin Sedaghat

Read the paper

Sedaghat, M. (2026). Picture This: Wordless picturebooks in the language classroom. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 61–68. DOI TO BE ADDED.


✨ Story-asking: Imaginative, Co-created Stories

Diane Neubauer

Read the paper

Neubauer, D. (2026). Story-asking: Imaginative, co-created stories. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 69–74. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🗺️ Playing with Place

Donald Richardson

Read the paper

Richardson, D. (2026). Playing with place. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 75–80. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🌻 Wonder Flower: Planting Seeds of Life and Language in a Pixelated City

Erik X. Raj

Read the paper

Raj, E. X. (2026). Wonder Flower: Planting seeds of life and language in a pixelated city. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 81–84. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🎭 “Take Your Heart”: Why Persona 5 Royal May Be the Best JRPG for Language Learning

Travis Compton

Read the paper

Compton, T. (2026). “Take Your Heart”: Why Persona 5 Royal may be the best JRPG for language learning. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 85–91. DOI TO BE ADDED.


🎮 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

James York

Read the paper

York, J. (2026). Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Ludic Language Pedagogy Special Issue: The Ludic You Love, 92–105. DOI TO BE ADDED.