A couple of years back, I was working at Tim Horton’s in Quebec City where most of the staff did not speak any English. There was only one person who did and he was a twenty year old guy. When I asked him where he learned English he told from school and from video games. He was an avid gamer and he would spend a lot of time playing multiplayer games on his XBox like Call of Duty. In these games, players would communicate with each other through a headset, and that allowed him to to interact in English. In the middle of shooting other players, Call of Duty would provide him with authentic and engaging interaction.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I believe that video games can be a strong tool in learning English, especially multiplayer games where you can interact. Here is a study of how the most popular multiplayer game in Thailand helps students learn English. The game is called Ragnarok Online, and it is free. It is a standard online role playing game where you would create a character such as a knight or a mage and then go on to fight monsters and evil characters to collect rewards. In addition to regular RPG quests (such as defeating a monster) there are also a lot of other activities that the players can participate in. They can form guilds, battle each other, solve quests together or just interact in the Town, the place where all the quests are given and all the players are friendly. They can interact through either a headset or through a chat box. This game looks fun and it looks like a fun way to learn English.
Besides multiplayer games, there are also Adventure Point and Click games like Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. This site talks more about them and how they apply to learning English. I played both games when I was young and I really enjoyed them. In these games, you play as a character which you control and you can interact with other characters and with objects and different environments. You would give commands such as talk, open, combine (items from inventory), read, look, attack and so on. These games really shine once you interact with other characters because you have different dialogue options. For example, you might talk to a character to find something out and you would have to choose the right questions to ask. All the dialogue has excellent voice acting and has subtitles. It’s a good way to build vocabulary, listen to authentic pronunciation and learn correct spelling. Adventure Point and Click games were very popular in the 90’s, but I’m not sure about how students would find them now. It would be interesting to play one of these games with my students.
What about other types of games? On his blog, Terry Heick talks about how video games can be very engaging to the male students. A game like Fallout 3 would have a lot of plots and subplots (and in my opinion may not be appropriate for the younger students because there is a lot of violence); it has literary mechanics that are just as complex as those in a book. He likes to give assignments that revolve around games like Fallout 3.
I remember that during my practicum, I asked the class if they played video games and someone mentioned the popular game Minecraft. When I told the class that I like Minecraft, some of the students were jumping out of their seats and telling me about how much they liked it as well. Even my practicum teacher said that those students did not usually like to participate. I wonder if my students were older and uninterested in regular text book work, would they be a lot more interested in doing a report on a game like Fallout 3? I would imagine so. If I was in their shoes, I definitely would like to play a fun video game rather than read some textbook.
There are all types of games out there, and as long as there is some kind of English content, players are going to learn English. I think that interactive multiplayer games are probably the best for learning L2 because they give you authentic interaction and are very engaging. The one thing that I like about video games is that kids WANT to play them, and as long as they play the right types of games, they will learn English.
There are also educational games out there that focus on directly on learning, but I do not believe that kids find these games fun. Otherwise, you would hear about how kids stayed up all night playing educational games.
igorgoren 