Parents’ Attitude toward Video Games

Rice (2007) states that one of the barriers of using video games in schools is the time constraint of class periods. This barrier made me wonder if students can play video games for learning purposes at home with the help of parents.

Many studies report that students spend the great amount of time on TV and video games, but just for relaxing, even resulting in the decline in school performance. If parents could intervene in playing video games with their children, selecting the appropriate video game and guiding their children to learn (content subjects or language learning) by playing together, on the one hand, children’s leisure time might turn good learning outcomes out; on the other hand, games could bring family closer together. In terms of language learning, studies (e.g., Lao, 2004) show parents’ language attitude and behavior is major factor of children’s language acquisition.

However, the problem is whether or not parents could accept the form of video games to learn language. One stereotype perspective was in my mind: parents are always strongly against video games, which are considered as a waste of time and bad cultural and behavior influences on children. In order to test if it is true, I searched online and found a survey result from ESA (Entertainment Software Association).

To my surprise, results show that “(s)ixty-one percent of parents with children under the age of 18 say that computer and video games are a positive addition to their children's lives”. Moreover, “(n)inety-one percent of parents surveyed who have children under the age of 18 said they monitor the content of the computer and video games their children play”. This is a good thing. Parents are willing to select appropriate video games for their children. If they want their children learn foreign languages through the game play, they could choose some video game that researchers recommended for language learning, such as the Sims.

In terms of parent involvement, “(f)orty-nine percent of parents say they play computer and video games with their children at least once a month”. The report said the Top four reasonsparents play video games with their children
Because they are asked to (79%).
It's fun for the entire family (75%).
It's a good opportunity to socialize with the child (71%).
It's a good opportunity to monitor game content (62%).

Since children like playing video games with parents together, parents could have the chance to utilize the video game as a learning tool for foreign/second language acquisition or other subject matters. When they see the positive learning outcomes of video games, the extent of the acceptance of video games will be increased, and those who refused video games might change their attitudes. Additionally, school could get the support from parents in terms of using video games in the classroom. Parent involvement solves the problem of short class periods in schools as well. More importantly, I believe more strong parent-school association/communication would be established.

As discussed above, we can see many positive education potentials of involving parents in playing the game with children together at home. However, those are just my assumptions and my dreams. There must be some challenges in practice. I would like to shift my attention a little bit to “parents and games” in the future study.

References:
Lao, C. (2004). Parents’ attitudes toward Chinese-English bilingual education and Chinese-English use. Bilingual Research Journal, 28(1), 99-121.

ESA (2006). Parents and games. Facts and Research. Retrieved April 18, 2008, from http://www.theesa.com/facts/parents_games.php.

Rice, J. W. (2007). New media resistance: Barriers to implementation of computer video games in the classroom. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16(3), 249-261.

Connecting American and Chinese kids in MMOGs

Nowadays, researches are paying more and more attention to the educational potentials of mainstream video games, including in the aspect of language learning. As a Chinese citizen, I am very interested in looking at this issue from China’s perspective. I spent several days doing the searching work on the internet, but I was disappointed for finding few researches that study on the issue of video games and China’s education.

In my personal experience as an EFL teacher in a middle school in China for three years, I have never used any video games in the English teaching in my classroom. Instead, I concentrated on classroom activities/games to assist my students’ English learning. Although classroom games are the effective approaches to support the second language acquisition, many current researches (e.g., deHaan, 2003) show that mainstream computer games have more potentials to scaffold language learning in terms of motivation, interaction, situated learning, etc.

Fortunately, I found a piece of industry news which presents a project of connecting American and Chinese players in MMOGs (Multiple Players Online Games). Professor Edd Schneider and Zeng a student of Information Communication Technology ran a study in 2005, showing that “online gaming can be used to teach English to Asian teens”. Based on this theory, therefore, they decided to start the project to connect American kids and Chinese kids together in MMOGs.

The purposes of this project are two: (1) Sell MMOGs to China market: many Chinese parents disagree with game play. They consider it as a waste of time. However, if parents see their kids learning English with American kids by playing games, the China market of video games might be open. (2) Help Chinese kids to learn English.

The project has run well so far. They made an ESL-friendly server. American students were getting up at 3 am, putting on their headsets and chatting with Chinese students in a high school in Shanghai. The project showed some positive language outcomes of Chinese children, i.e., (1) Chinese students learned a lot of conversational English that they wouldn’t get in normal classes; (2) they gained confidence in English speaking; and (3) they began to understand American culture during the interaction with American kids.

Professor Edd Schneider said they plan to put together a summer camp as the next step of the project. They are looking to connect high school students in America and China. And I think the best thing is that they plan to help kids to develop long-term relationships, starting in 9th grade until they graduate. As discussed in my last post, language learners get benefits not only from the game per se, but also from game communities, especially out-of-game communities. I believe there will be amazing results from this follow-up long term project. And I hope Professor Edd Schneider could analyze the project outcomes from the perspectives of both playing game itself and in-game communities & out-of-game communities.

Although this is industry news, I believe the project reported in the news would play a role in changing Chinese parents’ and educators’ attitudes toward computer games. I hope it would not only open the door of China market, but also open the door of China education to accept video games, but in a careful manner.

I look forward to seeing the updates of this project, and I will go to look for the study Professor Edd Schneider and Zeng did in 2005. I hope there will be more researches on the implementation of video games in Chinese school settings in the near future.

References:
deHaan, J. (2003). Learning Language through Video Games: A Theoretical Framework, an Evaluation of Game Genres and Questions for Future Research. Retrieved April 16, 2008 from http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/whitepaper.aspx?docid=127390

Gamasutra (2007) Q&A: Using World Of Warcraft to Teach English? Industry News. Retrieved April 16, 2008 from http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13341

Game communities and Second Language Learning

Ang, C.S., Zaphiris, P., Wilson, S. (2005). Social Interaction in Game Communities and Second Language Learning. The 19th British HCI Group Annual Conference. Edinburgh, UK

Many current researches (e.g., Cruz, 2007) mainly focus on the educational benefits from what is going on in the game. The emergence of the language-heavy digital games provides educators opportunities to benefit language teaching and learning by playing the game itself.

However, Ang et al (2005) argue that “the educational opportunity in computer games stretches beyond the learning activities in the game per se”. Most players do much more than just playing games, rather, they download guidelines from the internet and participate into online forums to talk about games. “Game communities” are formed as an inevitable part of the game play, especially in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs).

Ang et al (2005) note that there are two types of game communities: in-game community (e.g. in-game chatting and joint task) and out-of-game community (e.g. the creation of written game related narratives and fan sites).

The special aspect of this article is that it talks about game communities, especially out-of-game communities, from the perspectives of language learning. There are some studies (e.g., Yee, 2002b) on the social interactions in the gaming environment, but their main focus is on how social interaction plays a role from the perspectives of engagement and motivation, in an in-game community. Hence, this article attracts me as an ESL/EFL educator.

I have reviewed an article of Thorne et al (2007) in my blog somewhere, which describes a multi-lingual intercultural dialogue between two gamers, Meme (a novice player) and Zomn (Ukranian, an experienced player). The case study in this article is a good evidence to support Ang et al’s (2005) “game communities” from the language-learning perspective. Two players established a good relationship in the in-game community first. Meme asked for help from his Ukranian friend about how to say something appropriate in Russian, and two players both use some language pragmatic competences (such as requestiong for help) to promote communication between them. More importantly, an enduring friendship has been established to continue out-of-game social networks. Meme showed a strong interest in starting Russian language courses to better communicate with Zomn.

On the other hand, Ang et al (2005) classified computer game communities into three categories: (1) Single Game-Play Community - refers to a community formed around a single player game; (2) Social Game-Play Community - refers to multiplayer games which are played together in the same physical location; and (3) Distributed Game-Play community - refers to the online multiplayer game in which multiple sessions of game are established in different geographical locations. The Figure 1 clearly illustrates these three types of game communities (Sorry for the obscure picture, please go to the article to see the clear one if you want :) .

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Rankin et al. (2006) point out that social interaction is “a prerequisite to students’ language proficiency”. This article briefly introduces the “game communities”, as a form of social interaction in the game. The details of how language learning is promoted in the game communities have not been discussed in the article. Therefore, this article could serve as a call on more future researches on this issue, from the perspective of language learning. I would like to search more on studies of the role of game communities in language learning.

References:

Ang, C.S., Zaphiris, P., Wilson, S. (2005). Social Interaction in Game Communities and Second Language Learning. The 19th British HCI Group Annual Conference. Edinburgh, UK

Cruz, J. Q. (2007). Video games and the ESL classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, XIII (3).

Rankin, Y. A., Gold, R., & Gooch, B. (2006). Playing for keeps: Gaming as a language learning tool. Retrieved April 7th, 2008, from http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1180000/1179340/a44-rankin.pdf?key1=1179340&key2

Thorne, S. L. & Black, R. W. (2007). New media literacies, online gaming, and language education. Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research, 8.

Yee, N., (2002b) Ariadne – Understanding MMORPG addiction. Retrieved April 14, 2008 from: http://www.nickyee.com/hub/addiction/home.html.

Have students talk about video games

Current researches, in the area of using electronic gaming in the classroom, focus on selecting and implementing pedagogical strategies to support its integration in the classroom (Dipietro et al. 2007). I found a Video Games Lesson on the site of English as 2nd Language, which is a good example of implementing classroom activities to reinforce learning outside the game. It is designed for intermediated/advanced ESL learners.

The special aspect of this lesson is that it doesn’t teach students how to play some video games; rather, it aims to help students learn English by talking about their favorite video games. In other words, the teacher provides some meaningful classroom activities to support students’ language development outside of the game.

The outline of the lesson is as follows:
1. Have students read the short video game advertisement.
2. Discuss new words and other related vocabulary.
3. Ask students to get into small groups of three or four and fill in the vocabulary tree for video games.
4. Ask each student (or group of students) to write a description of one of their favorite video games using the vocabulary in the vocabulary tree. Ask students to NOT use the name of the game. Make sure to point out that directions should be given in the imperative voice (i.e., Open the door, go to the chest, get the gold, etc. NOT You must open the door, you must then go to the chest, you must get the gold from the chest, etc.)
5. Have students read their game descriptions to the class. Ask the other students to guess which game is being described.

All kids like playing video games. Learning language around a topic that students are interested in must result in an unexpected positive language outcome.

Another possible positive outcome of this lesson, which I think is the most important thing, could be students’ critical interpretation, analysis and evaluation of video games they discussed. Reeves & Nass’s (1996) media equation tells us some bad influences of computer games on people’s real life, as discussed in my previous post. Especially kids, they are more likely to confuse between the content in the game and their everyday lives. Throughout this video games lesson, the teacher has the opportunity to guide and scaffold kids to critically access, analyze, and evaluate the video games. Therefore, students will build on a critical understanding between the media and real life, preventing from the possible bad impacts of video games.

If I were the teacher of this video games lesson, what I would do to improve the lesson are:
1. Selecting appropriate video games for students to discuss. I hope the game have a great amount of English text shown and spoken in the course of the game, in order to enhance students’ language development during playing games.
2. Asking students what language skills they’ve learnt from playing the game (such as new vocabularies, new sentence structure, etc)? Do they have any language barriers to flow in the game? If so, what are they?
3. Asking some questions to help support kids’ critical understanding of the video game itself, such as “What is the purpose of the game?” “Who is the target audience?” “What do you think the violence aspect of the game?” etc.

My concern is whether or not this kind of lesson would reduce students’ motivation of playing video games. I guess students might become aware that they are being coerced into “learning” in the lesson. However, Prensky (2001) suggest that learning can only be enjoyable when it is unconscious. Therefore, I am afraid that once I ask students to play video games, they will think of “learning”. Gradually, they will lose interests in playing the video game, or gaining higher and higher affective filters when playing the game. That’s a bad thing.

Therefore, I would like to explore the studies on discussing some bad sides of follow-up activities outside of the game.

References:

Dipietro, M., Ferdig, R. E., Boyer, J., & Black, E. W. (2007). Towards a framework for understanding electronic educational gaming. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16(3), 225-248.

Prensky, M (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. McGraw-Hill Education

Video Games Lesson. About.com: English as 2nd Language. Retrieved on April 9, 2008, from http://esl.about.com/library/lessons/bl_videogames.htm.

Media = Real life (What does it mean for video games?)

Reeves & Nass (1996) draw the conclusion from the series of experiments, i.e., people treat and respond to media in the same way as they treat and respond to other people in everyday social interaction. In other words, people treat media as “social actors”.

Media Equation is a relatively new study on Human Computer Interaction. Prior to reading this article, I have not realized that people unconsciously act as if the media are people, although there do exist many examples in our real lives to show the evidence of the media equation, such as stories illustrated in Chapter 1.

According to the theory of media equation, it is very reasonable why simulation games and Second Life are so popular in language learning and other educational fields. Reeves & Nass (1996, p8) indicate that “(b)ecause people have a strong positive bias toward social relationships and predictable environments, the more a media technology is consistent with social and physical rules, the more enjoyable the technology will be to use”.

It implies that the designer of video games should supply some characteristics/personalities, that are favorable in everyday social interactions (such as the politeness and the praise), into the game. On the other hand, the media equation suggests that one important criterion to evaluate simulation games is to see how and to what extent they reliably recreate real world contexts.

However, the media equation has brought up some worries in the field of video games and virtual world, since the boundary of “media” and “real life” has been blurred.

1. Players might not be able to escape from the computer gaming environment to the real life. You will be shocked after looking at the following news – Online Gamer Killed for Selling Virtual Weapon: an online gamer stabbed competitor Zhu repeatedly in the chest after he was told Zhu had sold his "dragon sabre", used in the popular online game Legend of Mir 3. Another example is that Shawn, a game addict, killed himself in front of the computer game- Everquest, which I reported in one of my previous posts. This kind of stories is so terrible, just because players thought of avatars in the game as real themselves, unconsciously and fundamentally.

2. People are so automatic to treat media as equal to real life, especially in the environment of simulations. However, it’s impossible to simulate every nuance of a real-world situation, especially in critical industries. If people can not distinguish the real life and media, there might be dangers. Let’s image, a worker has no experience of a real nuclear reactor, but only some simulated experience. In front of a real crisis involving a real nuclear reactor, he/she says “Let me do it, I have experiences to deal with it”. Do you dare to have him/her to try?

3. The theory of media equation leads to the debate on “violence” of the computer games. By observing the aggression in the video games, players begin to learn how to aggress in the real life.

As discussed above, video games does have some bad influences on people’s everyday lives, if they simply treat media and real life as equal. Therefore, the question is how to protect people from the negative influences of computer games. Reeves & Nass (1996, p7-8) suggest that the media equation doesn’t apply when “people are quite capable of thinking their way around it”. Consequently, the bottom line is help players treat games as learning tools and/or relaxing tools “that only represent the real world but are not real themselves”.

The implications for educators are

1. Students need to be trained as “critical thinker” and “active learner” in the process of playing video games. New London Group (1996) proposes the pedagogy of Multiliteracies. They report that learners should be able to critically analyze and evaluate the media from historical, social, cultural, political and ideological perspectives. Students should not only enjoy playing computer games, but also carefully think about and critique games in the sociocultural contexts. Such critical thinking is absent in many schooling practices as well. Therefore, the teacher should play an important role in guiding and scaffolding students to critically analyze and evaluate the relationship between video games and real life, by utilizing some pedagogical strategies in the classroom.

2. Real-life training can not totally be replaced by simulations. For example, the ESL teacher should provide rich natural and real-life communications in the classroom, rather than just putting students in front of computers with language learning video games or other online communication tools.

In conclusion, considering the media equation is beneficial to video games in many ways: improving the design of video games; providing criterion to evaluate video games; understanding the drawbacks of video games, and giving implications for remedying the drawbacks of video games through teachers’ implementation of pedagogical strategies in the classroom.

The media equation has impacted the work of video games and simulations a lot. I look forward to seeing my peers' reflection on this issue.

Reference:

New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.

Reeves, B., & Nass, C. (1996). Ch 1, The Media Equation, pp. 3-18 in The Media Equation. Cambridge University Press.

Mainstream Digital Games (MDGs) vs. Learning-Oriented Games (LOGs)

When I googled “language learning online games”, I found many websites that contain various free online learning games. For example: Learning Vocabulary Fun has “WordSearch”, “CrossWords”, “HangMouse” and many other vocabulary online games.

These online games are different from The Sims and WoW. The former are “learning-oriented games (LOGs)”, which are particularly designed for language learning purposes; the later are “mainstream digital games (MDGs)”, which are primarily designed for entertainment purposes towards an end of language development. An interesting thing is that current researches paid more attention to the implementation of MDGs in the classroom, although they are not primarily designed for language development. Why?

My assumption is that MDGs have more educational potentials than LOGs in the classroom. Is that true? By exploring the word games on the site of “Leaning Vocabulary Fun” and looking at the studies on The Sims or WoW, I try to compare/contrast the differences between these two types of games.

1. LOGs are more simplistic than MDGs. In other words, players in MDG confront more challenges to complete the task. Dipietro, Ferdig, Boyer & Black (2007, p 232) report the element of challenge of electronic games promotes dynamic cognitive activity, resulting in the development of higher order processes such as metacognition and justification.

2. LOGs are mostly designed for sole-user, offline play; on the contrary, MDGs are designed for multiple players, online play. In this sense, MDGs are more effective than LOGs in the terms of language learning, because they provide the sense of collaboration in the game. Vygotsky’s ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) theory describes the gap between what children can accomplish independently and what they can achieve in collaboration with another, more competent person (Vygotsky, 1978).

3. Compared to LOGs, MDGs are typically more sophisticated in aspects of semiotic domains, such as images, graphics, animations, etc. Hence, it’s reasonable why MDGs are more likely to attract users.

4. In LOGs, the tasks are repetitive. For example, the player has to continually spell words in the “HangMouse”, so that the player might feel boring very quickly. It’s more like “work”, rather than “play”. On the contrary, in MDGs, the player could experience various activities toward the end of the task, learning language in a natural and unconscious way.

5. In LOGs, the activity usually concentrate on one language skill, such as the decoding skill in “HangMouse”; or concentrate on accumulation of homogenous content, such as spelling, phenome recognition, and vocabulary in “Word Scramble”. On the contrary, in MDGs, heterogeneous language skills/content could be achieved simultaneously within one activity during the game, such as “learning colors, body parts, professions, and relationships” in one activity of the Sim 2, as mentioned in my post last week - “The Sims Teach German”.

6. Last but not the least, users of LOGs are more likely to be aware that they are still learning. Prensky (2001) suggest that learning can only be enjoyable when it is unconscious. In this sense, MDGs have the potential to make learning fun.

From what discussed above, MDG does have more educational potentials than LOG. However, there are still some significant tensions to introduce MDG into the school setting.
1. There are a lot of irrelevant content in the MDG, which would waste valuable lesson time.
2. Does the language content/skills developed in the MDG match the criteria assessed in high stakes national tests, such as NCLB (No Child Left Behind)?

From these two perspectives, LOGs are more accurate and relevant to formal curriculum than MDGs.

The implication for future educational game designers is to find a good balance between MDGs and LOGs, thus reaching the highest potential of video games for language development in the classroom. My next step is to search more about how to reach at this balance.

References:
Dipietro, M., Ferdig, R. E., Boyer, J., & Black, E. W. (2007). Towards a framework for understanding electronic educational gaming. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16(3), 225-248.
Prensky, M (2001). Digital Game-Based Learning. McGraw-Hill Education

The Sims Teach German

Figure 1
Figure 2

Snapshots from video clip "The Sims Teach German" , Available from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1LmeBD-r08

From the Youtube, I found a very good video clip "The Sims Teach German" that analyzes the advantages of The Sims in the aspect of teaching a foreign language – German. I haven’t play The Sims yet, however, this video clip provided me a chance to visually experience this game, so that I can understand the benefits of this game for language development more vividly and more deeply.

This video clip compares and contrasts the ways to teach German by using The Sim2 and using traditional classroom textbooks. I listed some points that are most interesting to me:

Semiotic system
· The Sim 2: Animations enhance language acquisition and retention
· Traditional classroom textbooks: Text & Still images ( can not illustrate some abstract words or concepts)

Language
· The Sim 2: Multiple languages in the setting, and can be easily changed or even added
· Traditional classroom textbooks: Monolingual or bilingual at most

Activity
· The Sim 2: A variety of integrated learning objectives could be achieved simultaneously within one activity during the game, such as “learning colors, body parts, professions, and relationships”.
· Traditional classroom textbooks: Generally, one activity has one main learning purpose (refer to the example shown in Figure 1 above)

Learner engagement
· The Sim 2: Learners acquire language by creating their own virtual worlds. For example, they learn “where the furniture should go” by dragging the furniture here and there in their own world.
· Traditional classroom textbooks: One example is shown in Figure 2 above, they learn “where the furniture should go” by filling words in the blanks.

Simulation
· The Sim 2: Simulation environment allows learners to virtually experience real-world without the risk of injury, the cost of failure, time, etc. Moreover, learners could immerse in some environment that they will never have the chance to go in their real life, such as “colonial Williamsburg of 1775”.
· Traditional classroom textbooks: Only some still images, so …

This video clip is a good visual resource to understand the popular video game, The Sims. Although this game is primarily designed for entertainment, just as many other video games, it is really a good tool to enhance language learning in an authentic and fun way. Therefore, I think The Sim is very valuable in providing educational game designers with directions and good suggestions to develop some particular language-learning video games, promoting innovations in ESL/EFL or other foreign language learning field. I am very interested in exploring more on the analysis of The Sim.

Welcome to your comments

Hi everybody,

Please be free to give me any comments on my review paper (software evaluation of Kidspiration 3). It is not related to my research interest - gaming and language learning, just using this space for sharing and getting comments on my assignment.

Go to http://www.geocities.com/li_jiao/EME5404-assignment.html?1207187251797 , click the white button, then you can download my review paper.

Thanks very much.

:) Jiao

Learn Madarin Chinese by playing MMORPG - Zon

Photo source: http://zondev.educ.msu.edu/WebFront/Default.aspx

As I said in the previous post, I hope to find some video game that is primarily designed for education, rather than for entertainment. Now I am very happy to say I found a good one and it’s for my home language - Chinese language learning.

The game head developer says on the Zon website:

Zon is a multiplayer, online learning environment designed to teach Chinese language and culture through gameplay. As a web-based site, Zon provides real-time, on-demand connection to interactive learning activities and authentic cultural information.

I am very glad the designer claimed that Zon is designed based on some language-learning theories, such as “Zon is built on the premise that learning is interactive”. Therefore, Zon player has the chance to interact with NPCs (non-player characters), responsive game agents and other online players.

My favorite part of Zon is that it provides a wonderful simulated culture environment. From the snapshot of the game shown above, you can clearly see how Chinese this game is. Many traditional Chinese events, clothes, and food are included in the game. National Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (1999, p 47-48) declares that “the true content of the foreign language course is not the grammar and the vocabulary of the language, but the cultures expressed through that language”. This advantage of Zon is what The Sims doesn’t have. Many educators recommended using The Sims to learn German, but being immersed in the American culture.

I spent some time exploring this game. At the beginning of the game, I made my own avatar, who is wearing traditional Chinese clothes. Then, I got my own Zon Passport (interesting idea, I think). Next, I entered into Beijing international airport, communicating with banker, police, officer at the information counter, etc, anyone you want to talk with. Also, I can choose to play a variety of mini Chinese games at the game station or walk away there to go to a shopping district in Beijing. How cool it is! I guess many Chinese learners don’t have the chance to go to Beijing for shopping.

Photo source: http://zondev.educ.msu.edu/WebFront/Default.aspx

I didn’t have to chance to explore deeply on this game; however, I know the game will be more and more interesting and engaging as I progress further. The head developer introduced:

When you enter Zon, you start playing at the Tourist level. As you progress through Zon, you can choose to become a Resident – and even a Citizen – of this virtual Chinese world. Before you can progress to Resident and Citizen, however, you must engage in tasks learning about Chinese language, traditions, celebrations and daily life.

Another successful aspect of Zon is that it provides a space for communication not only between players and players/game agents, but also between players and game designers. From here, you can see how the game developer did a good job on inviting players to test and improve the game. If you ask me to evaluate Zon using the criteria we learnt in the previous weeks, I would definitely give an “A+”.

If you are interested in learning the Mandarin Chinese, don’t hesitate!!! Go ahead to Zon registration. Since I will work as a Chinese immersion teacher very soon, I will definitely recommend this game to my principal and other colleagues. I bet they will love it.

And I would like to discuss with my colleagues and YOU about how to design some particular classroom activities to facilitate the implementation of Zon. So excited!!!

References:

Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century (1999). National Standards in Foreign Language Education, retrieved on March 26, 2008, from http://www.globalteachinglearning.com/standards/5cs.shtml.

A Provocative Question

Could video replace classroom learning?

Andy Carvin just attended from the SXSWi conference, which he said it was “one of the most exciting events on the digital media industry calendar”. He wrote this article to report an interesting panel which posited a provocative question: should video game replace college.

The important points from this session are (1) it’s very necessary to apply some of MMRPOG games to schools and learning; (2) but games will never replace college; (3) However, the problem is that most professors even don’t want to change the traditional teaching methods at all. They refused accepting any video games into the curriculum.

I like some viewpoints, which were highlighted in the session, of the benefits of video games that the traditional college doesn’t have. For example, Michael Anderson of the University of Texas System TeleCampus indicated that video games increase students’ learning autonomy. Aliza Gold of the UT/Austin Digital Media Collaboratory noted that video games create an authentic real-world environment:

“Part of what makes it hard for students to be motivated is because what’s taught is taught out of context… It’s harder to learn material than way than when it’s applied in an actual real-world situation. Trigonometry is much more interesting when you’re trying to build a bridge. It’s possible that videogames could be used to help people learn curriculum in a real world sort of way.”

Aliza indicated the only thing that’s standing in the way of integrating video games into the college is attitudes. And she proposed an interesting advice “It’ll probably take a critical mass of gamers as professors for that to change.”

Game designer Mike McShaffry, who is the most skeptical person in the room, claimed that games will never replace college. He pointed that the challenge for educational game designers is to “create games that are authentic to the experience they’re trying to replicate”. They should not force “a square peg into a round hole - using a gaming experience that has nothing to do with what it’s simulating”.

In addition, playing games can not replace real experiences. Playing a party simulation game is very different from going to a real Christmas party in person.

I do agree with Mike, even prior to today’s reading. It’s good to apply some of video games into learning, but they will never replace traditional classroom. Except the challenge Mike proposed, I have two other reasons: (1) teacher instruction and scaffolding strategies plays an essential role in achieving the educational purposes of video games, as our group discussed recently; and (2) most video games were primarily designed for entertainment purposes. Educators found the educational potentials of the game on some subject matters, then modifying and integrating it into the classroom. In other words, there is a lack of video games especially designed for certain subject matters in educational contexts in the current market. Fortunately, “NASA recently put out a request for proposals for game developers to create an MMORPG focusing on math and science education”, Andy noted. I am very excited to hear this good news. In order to enhance learning by using video games in the educational contexts, we really need something that is particular for students’ learning needs, without at the cost of the entertainment benefits.

On the other hand, Andy extended this question into a deeper step at the end of the panel. He advocated inviting “students and teachers to be ones constructing games”. I think it’s a good idea. Just like inviting teachers and students to participate into the process of making curriculum. The advantages are (1) games/curriculum could meet their needs better and more practically; and (2) deepen their understanding of games/curriculum. As what I posted last week, Larry Ferlazzo’s classroom is a successful example of inviting students to create their own online games.

The ideas from this panel are not brand-new to us, however, the question posited by them worth deep thinking of all members in educational fields. It also gives us the chance to think of the limitations of the current educational video games, and gives us a path to improve them. Therefore, next step, I will try to search for some educational video games that are primarily and particularly designed for educational purposes (hopefully I can find some), and how to involve teachers and students deeper into the video games both production and implementation.

Reference:
Andy, C. (March 14, 2008) Could video replace classroom learning? PBS Teachers. Learning. now. Retrieved on March 28, 2008, Available from http://www.pbs.org/teachers/learning.now/2008/03/should_video_games_replace_cla.html

A great article on multilingual communication within a gaming environment

Thorne, S. L. & Black, R. W. (2007). New media literacies, online gaming, and language education. Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research, 8.

This paper examines second and foreign language uses within computer-mediated interaction. It conducts a case study of multilingual communication within a multi-user online gaming environment.

Thorne describes a multi-lingual intercultural dialogue between two gamers, Meme (American, a novice player) and Zomn (Ukranian, an experienced player). The dialogue was occuring in a popular online game - WoW. The findings suggest that:

(1) The communication was naturally occurring without constraining by the fabricated and instructed setting discourse;
(2) They mainly used English, but three languages (English, Russian, the Latin aphorism) were totally used. Meme asked for help from his Ukranian high school friend using AOL Instant Message about how to say something appropriate in Russian;

(3) The dialogue illustrated some language strategies used by both participants, including language-specific explicit corrections with a following encouraging softener, requesting for a comprehension check, and collaboratively assembled successful repair sentences;
(4) An enduring friendship has been established to continue not only the intra-game activity but also out-of-game social networks.

This case study is a good example to show how language learners improve their language proficiency skills and their interlanguage pragmatic competences, such as requesting for help, in an online gaming environment. Ellis (retrieved on March, 2008) indicates that the acquisition of linguistic-pragmatic competences plays an important role in performing well the “contextualized acts” in the social interaction.

On the other hand, Zomn freely expressed his Ukranian identity and he is proud of it. He said to Meme that “tell him (Meme’s Ukranian friend) u got an interpreter now :)”. As Murray (2005) has noted that identity is formed through interaction in the online context, which provides opportunities for positively expressing their identity, especially when they find the value of their home language use in the computer-mediated communication. In this case, Meme studies some Russian from his Ukranian friend, in order to build a better relationship with the experienced player – Zomn. Zomn found the value of the Russian language use in WoW and be proud of it. A good relationship has been established between Meme and Zomn.

In a follow-up conversation with Meme, he showed a strong interest in starting Russian language courses. And he also reported that one of his roommates had already begun to learn Chinese in order to more fully participate in Chinese language-mediated game play. From this perspective, MMOGs prompt the multilingual and multicultural communication all over the world, increasing positive mutlicultural attitudes of the participants. How wonderful!!!

ESL educators advocate affirming diversity in the classroom, celebrating multiple cultures and languages in the classroom (e.g., Schwarzer, 2003). This article shows the potentials of MMOGs in this aspect. The implication for ESL educators is that video games could be a successful approach to achieve the goals of affirming diversity.

However, the issue of teachers’ scaffolding and implementation strategies in affirming diversity in the online gaming environment hasn’t been discussed in this paper, which could be one opportunity for further research.

Although the analysis presented in the paper is only limited to one case of online in-game conversation, it’s still suggestive of multi-lingual intercultural communication that frequently occur on WoW and other MMOG gaming sites. I would like to try to play some MMOG game to gain personal experiences of this kind of multilingual and multicultural communication, to explore more on this issue.

References:

Ellis, R. Pragmatic aspects of learner language. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Retrieved on March, 2008, from http://zephyr.nsysu.edu.tw/sla_studygroup/SLA--index.files/record/0519_wang/Interlanguage%20Pragmatics.ppt#256,1,Pragmatic aspects of learner language.

Murray, D. E. (2005). Technologies for second language literacy. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25,188-201.

Schwarzer, D, Haywood, A.& Lorenzen (2003) Fostering multiliteracy in a linguistically diverse classroom. Language Arts, 8 (6).

Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day

A snapshot from Larry Ferlazzo’s homepage

As said in my last posting, I found Larry’s work is very relevant and valuable to my research interest “gaming and ESL education”, so I was starting to search for more of his work. And I am very glad to find his WiKi space.

From the introduction of his WiKi, I know it includes nearly 8,000 categorized links appropriate for ESL learners. I was really impressed by that. Among these links, many of them are about e-gaming and language learning, such as Learning With Computers, The Tech Savvy Educator and learning games. There are a lot of useful information about gaming and language learning under these categories.

Larry has highlighted a lot of online games, giving brief descriptions of the games, and analyzing their advantages and disadvantages for language development. It gives ESL teachers, who want to integrate video games into their classrooms, a good guideline to choose appropriate ones.

And a more wonderful thing is that Larry put the games into different categories. For example, the game, Sim Sweatshop, fall into the category of “simulations”, “Intermediate language learners” and “social studies”. He describes Sim Sweatshop as a role-playing game in which “the player simulates being a worker in an overseas sweatshop producing sneakers for the American consumer”. He commented it as “an excellent tool to help teach about economics and justice”, so he put it under social studies as well.

The detailed categories of each game provide ESL teachers a much clearer guideline to choose an appropriate online game, in order to meet students’ different needs. Larry insists that the selection of a proper online game plays an essential role in achieving your specific educational goal, just like choosing a proper textbook in the traditional classroom. I like this point. Dipetro (2007) also indicates that the selection of the game is one of the major concerns in current pedagogy research areas. Although there is a lack of video games especially designed for ESL learners, as mentioned by Zhuo, Larry’s analysis and organization of the online games will definitely help ESL educators a lot, in increasing the language educational potentials of these commercial games.

There are not many resources on the area of gaming and language education, especially some experts’ WiKi space. Zhuo has posted Kyle Mawer’s Wiki space in her blog, and this one could be another valuable resource for the future exploration. And I would like to do more researches on how the genre of video games influence its implementation in the classroom.

References:
Dipietro, M., Ferdig, R. E., Boyer, J., & Black, E. W. (2007). Towards a framework for understanding electronic educational gaming. Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 16(3), 225-248.

Free Online Games Develop ESL Students' Language Skills

Tech Learning is a good website that explores how to integrate technology into learning processes. It includes a lot of valuable resources, articles and news for teachers, tech coordinators and administors. When I searched for “gaming and ESL”, I found some good articles. One example is “Free Online Games Develop ESL Students' Language Skills”.

The author, Larry Ferlazzo, is an ESL high school teacher. He teaches English and Social Studies to ESL learners. And he is the Grand Prize winner of the 2007 International Reading Association Presidential Award for Reading and Technology.

In this article, he recommended a lot of online games, which “that are primarily designed for entertainment purposes towards an end of English-language development”. He divided these online games into several categories - escape the room, adventure, choose your own adventure, and hidden object. I'd like to explore these games later. The part I like in this article is that Larry has his criteria to choose online games for ESL educational purposes: 1) no sexual and violence content; 2) “must have a fair amount of English text shown and, ideally, spoken in the course of the game”; and 3) free and online, and not require any downloading, “as this can be problematic for school computers”.

Moreover, he designed many classroom activities, in order to use online games for language development purposes. For example, he asks his students to write down their own walkthroughs for the game they played; to discuss their playing experiences with each other.

AND he proposed a new idea to ask students to create their own online games on Sploder, a free website that students could quickly and easily design their own games. And then students could write the instructions on how to play the game they designed, play other games that have been created by their classmates, and give some comments.

Larry’s classroom is absolutely a good example of optimizing the use of video games for language development. I would like to explore more on Larry’s work later.

Reference:

Ferlazzo, L. (2008). Free online games develop ESL students' language skills. Tech Learning. Retrieved on March 24, 2008. Available from http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.php?articleID=196604915.

E-gaming and Education in China

Bringing technology into education is not a new topic in China. Chinese educators have realized the benefits of e-gaming in the educational contexts as well. While cruising the web, I found the first educational gaming website that was launched in Shanghai in 2005.

This website was designed by the East China Normal University Press and a Hong Kong communication corporation. The East China Normal University Press has a very good reputation in educational area in China. I guess almost every Chinese student from G1 to G12 must be very familiar with one educational reference book published by that Press, which is called “yikeyilian”(one lesson one practice). And this website is kind of Internet-based “yikeyilian”. If I were a student, I would definitely choose to enter into the intriguing Internet-based one, rather than the boring and dull paper-based one.

The website covers three subject matters (Chinese, Math and English) from grade 1-5. The middle school and high school versions are currently under development. There are almost 60 e-games to give students a platform to play and learn. I will introduce some of them:

"Daily Journey": It brings kids into various virtual worlds to learn content knowledge, like space travel and fairy world. The game is not only interesting, but also strongly linked to the content knowledge.

“Cool Knowledge”: It’s about some interesting daily knowledge, like an encyclopedia. Every week, they have different themes, such as language and biology.

"Journey Tracking System": It’s a student performance tracking system, keeping a track of the student’s “travelling history”. In this way, the student will be motivated to advance to higher level. Moreover, the student will have the sense of competition in this platform.

Every game really looks fun to me. If you want to know more, please visit http://e-legends.yikeyilian.com/index.php.

But, the system language is in Chinese. Sorry for the inconvenience for most of you. I hope someday there will be an English version. On one hand, this educational gaming website will be available to more English-speaking kids; on the other hand, for Chinese kids, they can have opportunities to learn English by Content Based Instruction (CBI), which is proven to be an effective teaching method by many researches (e.g., Davies, 2003).

Reference:
Davies, S. (2003). Content based instruction in EFL contexts. The Internet TESL Journal, IX (2). Available from http://iteslj.org/Articles/Davies-CBI.html.

Everquest Or Evercrack?

- Death of a game addict

Numerous researches demonstrate the motivating nature of video games in educational contexts, including in the second language acquisition area (e.g. Waters, 2007; & Cruz, 2007). However, does this kind of SUPER motivating nature have some side effects?

CBS News (2002) reported a sharp debate caused by a game – Everquest. It’s an online role-playing game in which players explore a fantasy world. This game has been recommended by many researchers for language learning, such as in the articles I reviewed in my previous posts (Waters, 2007; & Purushotma, 2005). Because of its addictive properties, players refer to Everquest as “Evercrack”. Purushotma (2005) reports that the average player spends over 20 hours a week playing Everquest. “There's no end to the game once you begin to play, unless you turn off the computer” (CBS News, 2002).

As we know, the amount of time is a key factor to influence language acquisition. From this point, Everquest is good. But after you listen to the following story, you might begin to blame this game. Shawn, a 21-year-old game addict, killed himself in front of the computer with Everquest. He had problems depression and schizoid personality disorder. So he spent as many as 12 hours a day playing the game for more than one year. His mom says "He stopped trying because it was easier to move on in the game than it was in real life; he logged into the game and logged out of him life”. And his mom believes “an addiction to Everquest pushed him over the edge”.

This story is so terrible. When I googled “Shawn, game addict”, I found numerous websites about this terrible story. If you want to know more details of this story, you can visit http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=31536.

It’s unfair to convict Everquest just according to one specific event, but this event did give us a big warning. Jay Parker, a chemical dependency counselor and co-founder of Internet/Computer Addiction Services in Redmond, Wash., said “people who are isolated, prone to boredom, or lonely are much more susceptible to becoming addicted to online games. Having low self-esteem or poor body image are also important factors.” Parker’s words made me start to worry about our ESL kids.

Actually, researches (e.g., Norton, 2000) show that many ESL learners feel isolated and lonely; they don’t know who they are, what their identities are; they have low self-esteem or poor body image. According to Parker, they are just under the category of people “much more susceptible to becoming addicted to online games”.

In my last post, I commented that e-gaming environment is safe place to help ESL kids to forget the marginalization and“power imbalances” they can feel in the real world. They experience a new world and a new identity in the game, so that they can be more comfortable to acquire the English language. But now, I don’t know it’s good or bad. I am afraid that that kind of terrible story will happen on someone else someday.

What do you think of it?

References:
Cruz, J. Q. (2007). Video games and the ESL classroom. The Internet TESL Journal, XIII (3).

Everquest or Evercrack. ( 2002). CBS News. The Early Show. Retrieved on March 18, 2008, from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/28/earlyshow/living/caught/main510302.shtml.

Miller, S, A. (2002). Death of a game addict -Hudson man took own life after long hours on Web. JS online: News: Wisconsin. Retrieved on March 18, 2008, from http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=31536.

Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change. Essex, England: Longman.

Purushotma, R. (2005). Commentary: you’re not studying, you’re just… Language Learning & Technology. 9(1). P 80-96. Retrieved on March, 2008, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num1/purushotma/default.html

Waters, J. K. (2007). On a quest for English. THE Journal, 34(10). 27-32. Available from http://thejournal.com/the/printarticle/?id=21380.

NEW Identity in MMORPGs

Identity has been always a key concept in language learning research. Many studies show that there is an inextricable connection between identity and second language acquisition (e.g., Amin, 1997; Norton, 2000). Norton（2000, p. 354）indicates that identity is "a site of struggle" for ESL learners. Through her two-year study involving five adult immigrant women in Canada, Norton found that learners are not always free to interact with native English speakers, because they can feel marginalization and “power imbalances” (p. 113). On the first day of their arrival in the United Stated, they were labeled as “ESL” and “minority groups”.

How to help ESL learners to build the satisfaction of their own identities? This is always a key concern for all ESL educators. After reading Waters’s (2007) article, I found that MMORPGs (massively multi-players online role-playing games) can provide absolutely wonderful environments to help deal with this hard issue.

Waters (2007) covers a number of studies on using MMORPGs in educational contexts, especially on their use in second language acquisition. Except talking about the motivating nature of e-games, like many other researches, Waters also indicates the aspect of New Identity built in MMORPGs. He says that one of the best things about MMORPGs for ESL learners is that MMORPGs provide them with the virtual worlds, in which the player could build a new identity to communicate with other players.

Dr. Gee, a professor of Curriculum and Instruction at UW-Madison says, “What’s particularly compelling about games is that they get you to be in a different, new world and be a different, new person, and that’s why little kids like them” (Johnson, 2003)

What are the benefits of building a new identity in the e-games? In the game, you are your avatar, nobody knows who you are and where you are. MMORPGs present a virtual environment with equal relations of participation, power and identity status. There are no "mainstream groups" or "minority groups". Skin coloring, ethnicity or culture are not important at all in the gaming worlds. I guess those ESL learners, who feel marginalized in the real world, at least can find one good place to feel comfortable and satisfied. If a person likes the environment around him/her, I think he/she will be more likely to have a positive attitude toward the language used in that environment. Language attitudes are found as a major factor in the second language acquisition and in the retention of second language skills (Gardner & Lambert, 1972).

On the other hand, the e-gaming environment provides players with a safe place to make mistakes. John Nordlinger, program manager for the Microsoft Research group, says "You aren't your avatar, you can use that avatar to make mistakes in a game without losing face. And that's a very good thing" (Waters, 2007). In other words, ESL learners will be more comfortable using English to communicate with others in virtual worlds than in real world (Murray, 2005).

All in all, MMOPRGs create a completely new virtual world, to help ESL kids temporarily forget their marginalized identity and power status. In this world, they have opportunities to acquire the second language with low-anxiety level and with huge motivation. What a marvelous world! But when they come back to the reality, they may still have to face the marginalization, or even worse, discrimination. How sad!

References:
Amin, N. (1997). Race and the identity of the nonnative ESL teacher. TESOL Quarterly, 31 (3).

Gardner, R.C., & Lambert, W.E. (1972). Attitudes and Motivation in Second-Language Learning. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

Johnson, A. (2003). The learning game - researchers study video gaming principles that apply to education. WIN News. Retrieved on March, 2008, from http://wistechnology.com/articles/243/?id=243.

Murray, D. E. (2005). Technologies for second language literacy. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25,188-201.

Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Gender, ethnicity, and educational change. Essex, England: Longman.

Waters, J. K. (2007, October). On a quest for English. THE Journal, 34(10). 27-32. Available from http://thejournal.com/the/printarticle/?id=21380.

Sorry for the Chinese characters shown on my blog

Hi guys, sorry for the Chinese characters shown on my blog. I haven't realized that until now. Today, when I sit in front of the computer in my husband's office, to check my blog. I suddenly realized that not all computers can recognize the Chinese characters. I guess, except Zhuo, all others must see many wired symbols. I immediately changed the language setting. I hope it works now.

Sorry for the inconvenience :)

PLAY and FEED a Hungry Person

Today I found a very interesting and brilliant online vocabulary game which is called Free Rice. I don’t know if you’ve already heard about it, but I can not help recommending it to you. Free rice is sponsored by the U.N. World Food Program. If you get one word correctly, they will donate 20 grains of rice to the poor to help end hunger. The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen (see example shown in the picture above). As of today they have raised 22,478,677,910 grains of rice (see details here).

I really like this brilliant idea. Playing vocabulary game is associated with helping end hunger. What a big motivation! As we know, motivation is a key for success. I at once spent 5 minutes to try this game and I donated 380 grains of rice (see the picture above). It’s a small number, but I am very excited about it :). I decide to play more at my free time.

But, one problem is that, when I play this vocabulary game, it’s like doing the TOEFL test. I mean the vocabulary level is a little bit high for ESL learners, especially for beginning-level learners. I am wondering if Free Rice can add some levels particularly for ESL learners. If so, I believe our kids will spend an unexpected amount of time playing this game, to help the poor and to practice their English vocabulary at the same time.

Don’t wait. This game is fun and simply brilliant. Check-it-out here.

Article Review

Purushotma, R. (2005). Commentary: you’re not studying, you’re just… Language Learning & Technology. 9(1). P 80-96. Retrieved on March, 2008, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol9num1/purushotma/default.html

This commentary examines how to use and modify entertainment-focused games for language learning. Purushotma discusses the educational advantages of many existing video gaming innovations, including The Sims, Everquest, Operator’s Side, etc. The author concludes that a successful language-learning video game should have the following properties: 1) the ability to easily edit international language files; 2) MMOG (massively multiplayer online games); and 3) speech interface.

In this commentary, Purushotma proposes the concept of “edutainment”, which means merging educational goals with entertainment content, by providing natural and rich contextual language learning environment into entertaining video games.
By doing that, learners are involving in a much more relevant, interactive, attractive and effective environment to acquire language than in the traditional teaching approaches.

There are many theoretical grounds to support learning language through gaming and simulation. For example, Al-Seghayer (2001) indicates that images and videos created for glossing reading passages can enhance incidental vocabulary acquisition better than can text-only glosses. Moreover, learners are able to guess the meaning of vocabulary in contextualized gaming environments. Huckin & Coady (1999) report that a gaming environment can provide learners with personally relevant tasks, thus highly motivating learners. In addition, Purushotma (2005) indicates that MMOGs provides learners to communicate with native L2 speakers from all over the planet.

The implication of this commentary is that the classroom teachers should bring new technologies, including gaming and simulation, into the language learning process, in order to motivate and facilitate their learning.

However, the author does not talk anything about teachers’ role in guiding learners to fully make use of the advantages of new technologies. Video games definitely will require more cognitive demands than traditional print-based texts, because of its multi-semiotic features, such as color, graphics, symbols and sounds, and because of the way to construct knowledge from a nonlinear, hypertext navigation. Therefore, researchers emphasize that the teacher needs to scaffold learners to develop these new skills, and support their progress toward autonomy (e.g., Murray, 2005). Although this seems to be beyond Purushotma’s focus, it might be another valuable area for other researchers to look at how teachers can facilitate students’ language learning in the gaming environments.

My other concerns are: what are the relationships between traditional classroom language teaching and this kind of new gaming language teaching? Is it OK to completely neglect the traditional classroom teaching? If not, how to balance these two approaches for language learning?”

References:
Al-Seghayer, K. (2001). The effect of multimedia annotation modes on L2 vocabulary acquisition: A comparative study. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 202-232. Retrieved March, 2008, from http://llt.msu.edu/vol5num1/alseghayer/

Huckin, T., & Coady, J. (1999) Incidental vocabulary acquisition in a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 21(2), 181-193.

Murray, D. E. (2005). Technologies for second language literacy. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 25,188-201.

Language Learning Via Video Gaming

Recently, I saw a piece of news that interests me. It's retrieved from

http://www.army.mil/-news/2007/01/22/1458-tilt-language-learning-via-video-gaming/

VINCENZA, Italy (Army News Service, Jan. 22, 2007)-
“The battlefield is going virtual”. Soldiers in Vincenza, Italy are provided a simulation video game to learn the Iraqi language – Arabic. This video game has “animated characters and life-like simulations that emphasize missions they'll conduct downrange”. In the tactical Iraqi language and culture training (TILT), there is no instructor and soldiers could learn at their own pace. TILT players are given voice-activated commands and they will get immediate feedback and guidance on Arabic language and culture learning. Soldiers are highly motivated to learn Arabic and they learn fast, “they've already spoken Arabic face-to-face with Iraqis on Baghdad streets”.

The battlefield is going virtual. Petty Officer Joe Ebalo tells us how Soldiers in Vicenza, Italy, are using a video game for more than just
recreational use. Photo by AFN Europe


I don’t want to comment on the influence of TILT from the perspectives of military affairs and politics, but, TILT is a really successful foreign language learning program through gaming and simulation. This video game creates a “virtual” Iraqis, which is strongly related to soldiers’ lives and interests, thus increasing their autonomy and motivation. New London Group emphasizes the motivation in learning, stating “people do not learn anything unless they are motivated and believe they will be able to use and function with what they are learning some way that is in their interest” (New London Group, 1996). Therefore, simulation is absolutely a good way to motive students and provide an authentic environment for them to acquire language and enhance learning.

Reference:
New London Group (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60-92.

The topic of my blog

My study interest is on digital gaming and language learning. Digital gaming is becoming a powerful tool in all academic fields. At the same time, ESL/EFL teachers have also begun to think how computer games, such as The Sim, could shift the way we approach language teaching and learning. Therefore, my blog focuses on how digital games become an effective way of acquiring a second/foreign language.