Being an active member of this blog has been an experience which I feel
has greatly added to my knowledge about video games and their potential to
serve as tools in education. The research carried out for my own
contributions, coupled with the stimulating articles submitted by my fellow
team-bloggers has afforded me an insight into the way in which games could
prove to play a key role in future pedagogic practices, and thinking of my own
context, I am now very keen to see games implemented into the English as a
foreign language (EFL) curriculum.
Up until January of this year, I was working in junior high schools in
Yokohama, Japan, where students’ ages range from twelve to fifteen years. Japan
is a very technologically advanced society, with a high volume of extremely digitally-literate
youth. Initially, I encountered difficulties in interacting with students due
to their lack of confidence in speaking English. Furthermore, I believe that many
students assumed we shared little in common to discuss. This situation quickly changed when I demonstrated
my knowledge of computer games and computer game culture, and students, both
male and female, soon lost their inhibitions when they had the opportunity
to talk with me about the latest version of "Monster Hunter", or what their
favourite Nintendo DS title was.
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| Japan and Video Games: Symbiotic |
Williamson (2009) discusses issues of educators using video games as
part of their teaching repertoire, and statistics in his report reveal that
teachers in the U.K., for example, do not make up a significant percentage of
the nation’s gaming population. It is fortunate that from a young age, I have
been an avid gamer and consumer of digital technologies, as this enabled me to maintain a level playing field with many of my students, and I quickly developed a
rapport with these young learners. At the time this was something that I took
for granted, but I now realise the importance for teachers to become
digitally-literate if they are to engage students in new and motivating forms
of instruction.
Students at my school were particularly big fans of simulation type
games which require text-based interactions with in-game characters in order
to successfully progress to higher levels. With this in mind, I believe that a
game from “The SIMs” series would prove particularly motivating for my students
as a language teaching tool.
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| The SIMs - Authentic English interactions without having to go anywhere. |
Ranalli (2008) has looked at the pedagogical benefits of “The SIMs”
within an ESL learning environment, and found that structured play of the game,
together with supplementary materials to assist the language learner resulted
in successful vocabulary acquisition. Students also reported the game as being
an enjoyable way of learning a language. The research mirrored results from another
study by Miller and Hegelheimer (2006) which also targeted “The SIMs” as a plausible
mainstream English game that could be incorporated into the language-learning
classroom.
Both studies were carried out on a small scale and results largely relied
on self-reported participant data. Nevertheless, the studies have laid the
groundwork for studies into the possible implementation of an innovative language learning program,
using a video game based form of foreign language instruction.
Students at my school have regular PC lab sessions for a variety of subjects including mathematics and geography, yet to date their English syllabus does not take advantage of any digital technology. I would like to test-run a game title such as “The SIMs” as a supplementary English session once a week with my students in the language lab, to ascertain whether such an innovation within the EFL curriculum would be a motivating factor for students’ learning abilities. I believe that weekly sessions using game software such as “The SIMS” could provide students with a great supplementary source of linguistic exposure which could complement regular coursework, and of course, break the monotony of repetitive traditional forms of learning that are still so common in the EFL context in Asia.
Some limitations do exist however, and it is possible that modifications
to the software would have to be made if an effective program is desired. Miller and Hegelheimer (2006) note, for
example, that “The SIMs” is largely culturally based, and
research has shown that student resistance to foreign acculturation can lead to a hindrance in learning. For this reason, it would be ideal to implement a modified version of
the software that incorporated some elements of Japanese culture into the virtual
world, as was the case for Native American Indian learners using the “RezWorld”software.
The other limitation is that, as an off-the-shelf title, “The SIMs”
would require supplementary material to provide EFL students with specific
language-learning tasks and more explicit procedural instructions.
Such modifications obviously have financial implications, but I believe that I as a teacher could create and provide many of these supplements myself, and
personally involve myself in the orchestration of the game sessions by participating as a character in the game myself. In this way, I would have the ability to monitor student
activity and act as a passive guide during tasks when required.
Although it would take some time to refine the process, I believe that the integration of simulation games
into EFL language-lab sessions at schools could prove to be an exciting
innovation in the language-teaching curriculum. Unfortunately, public school syllabi
are strictly controlled in Japan by the city Boards of Education, so it would
perhaps be wiser to initially test the effectiveness of the software by hosting pilot
sessions in after school English club meets. If proven to be effective over time, then who is to say that the higher powers that be wouldn't consider taking a chance and revising the course syllabus?
References:
Miller, M. & Hegelheimer, V. (2006). The SIMs meet ESL:
Incorporating authentic computer simulation games into the language classroom. Interactive
Technology & Smart Education,4, 311-328.
Ranalli, J. (2008). Learning English with The Sims: exploiting authentic
computer simulation games for L2 learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning,
21:5, 441-455.
Williamson, B. (2009). Computer games, schools, and young people. A report for educators on using games for learning. Retrieved from:
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