Task 5

A.Chik Digital gaming and language learning

Having read the article Digital gaming ang language learning by A.Chik there are several questions as well as thoughts that come to my mind. First of all is the natural question on which kind of the games that would be used for this purpose. Being a typical woman, I've never had any interest in playing video games, even playing Angry Birds on my cell phone when there is absolutely nothing else to do seems like a waste of time. If we would actually integrate video games as a part of teaching English at school, I would expect the games and their contents to fit the overall teaching and educational goals, not just serve as a tool in learning the language.

Furthermore, I'm not sure how easy it would be to find the time to actually play games during lessons. It is very difficult to get through the teaching material (dictated by the national Curriculum) as it is, and although playing games could prove to be a quite effective way to teach English, there are many areas of language learning that have to be taught at school. Naturally, if there were games particularly designed for teaching purposes, it would be more justified to use them when teaching a certain theme.

However, I can certainly see the point why playing video games is advisable. Having taught English for two years at an upper secondary school, I was clearly able to see the difference between boys who played video games in their freetime and girls who had basically learned the language via textbooks and in school. The students that performed best, especially in essays and listening comprehensive tests, were mostly boys and the level was very close to that of a native speaker. And these boys played video games and I would assume a lot. This is not to say that all boys that played video games excelled in English or all girls that had learnt English solely in school weren't that good, of course not. You could even say that there is some inequality in that. Nowadays, with all those boys thriving in the matriculation exams, the level of the exam has risen so much that a perfectly good student is unable to get the best marks.

In conclusion I would share the author's view that teachers should provide guidance and structures for youn learners on learning to use games to the purpose of language learning. This way students would understand that they can profit from their freetime activity and it might inspire girls to take up playing, too.