Edited by Jason, Florence, Silver and Ceci
The role of digital gaming in East Asian countries has commonly been perceived as detrimental to students’ academic performances (Gentile, Choo, Liau, Sim, Li, Fung, & Khoo, 2011). However, despite vigorous opposition towards gaming by the parents and the education system as a whole, gaming is still the unparalleled choice of hobbies among students. According to a survey done by the University of Hong Kong (2017), students spend on average 3 hours a day playing different kinds of video games. In this regard, while stakeholders of Hong Kong can moan over how students waste their time on gaming, it is also worth investigating if the 3 hours they use per day can actually be educationally conducive with reference to the English Curriculum Guide of Hong Kong 2017.
Figure 1: The Education Bureau HKSARG
Video gaming as a Language-rich Environment
According to the Curriculum Guide 2017, the subject target of English Language is for students to develop an self-sustaining capability to use English to communicate. In other words, communicative competence has been seen as of paramount importance in Hong Kong. In order to facilitate the promotion of language skills, the curriculum guide suggests that stakeholders provide a comprehensive language rich environment for students as a way to prompt meaningful interactions. In the 21st century, the learning environment can be physically oriented and virtually oriented as long as the location is utilized implicitly or explicitly as a space for learning (Chik 2014). Chik’s finding suggested that video gaming offers a comprehensive language rich environment for students to interact with L2 in a meaningful and immersive manner. In an example provided by Chik, a student was able to expand his vocabulary in the legal field by playing Ace Attorney which was later proven to be conducive to his study in criminological psychology.
In the case of Hong Kong, exposure to video gaming can promote reading of high frequency words among students. High frequency words are a set of words students were supposed to read automatically on each level of their study. Given the wide range of vocabulary available in video gaming, students will be further exposed to high frequency words outside the classroom in a context provided by the immersive world.
Video Gaming as a tool for SDL (Self-directed learning)
In society, the role of gaming is often criticized due to its informal and non-institutional nature as critics believe that learning occurs only in a formal and institutionalized setting. With reference to 4 dimensions of out of class learning (Figure 2) suggested by Chik, formality refers to whether or not a learning activity is part of an institutional programme possibly leading to qualifications. Informal learning usually involves pursuit of interests outside institutionalized learning environments. In this sense, gaming, undoubtedly, can be regarded as informal. However, it is inappropriate to establish an equivalence between informal and non-pedagogical benefits.
According to the Curriculum Guide 2017, emphasis has been put on the promotion of self-directed learning inside and outside the classroom. The facilitation of self-directed learning outside the classroom in the form of intentional learning rests on students’ motivation. In general, motivation for learning can be characterized extrinsically and intrinsically with the former based on instrumental rewards while the latter focuses on the pursuit of interests. Video gaming offers a platform for students to learn English building on extrinsic rewards (understand how to accomplish a mission to obtain in-game rewards in an RPG(Roleplaying game)). In this case, students will be motivated to expand their language skills to understand the game more in order to maximize their rewards.
Figure 2: Chik 2014, p.88
Video gaming as a platform to facilitate the transition of “Learning to Read” to “Reading to Learn”
The notion of “Reading to Learn” is another important objective of the Hong Kong English Curriculum. To achieve the above objective, one goal of English lessons is to impart reading strategies to students (Learning to Read) so as to allow them to read materials in an autonomous manner (Reading to Learn). While the Education Bureau of Hong Kong advocates “Reading to Learn” via Cross-Curriculum Learning, the formality of it creates a non-authentic and demotivating scenario for students to apply their reading skills. However, video games provide an opportunity for students to apply their reading skills in a motivating and immersive manner.
Games, especially role-playing games, require a focused reading of in-game text to understand the gameplay mechanics and plots with colorful and accurate visual aids. Students, in this sense, have to utilize their reading skills with the visual aids to proceed the game. Unlike in lessons where students will give up and rely on teachers when they fail to solve a question, students in video games have to look for the meaning of words and read walkthroughs if they wish to continue the gameplay.
The extensive reading materials and videos available online related to gaming allow students to utilize reading skills beyond the game in a gaming community. As stated by Chik, some gamers will browse additional information online and interact with each other which is likely to further bolster their language skills in reading and writing.
Discussions:
- Have you remembered any impressive words from an English game you played before? What makes the word so impressive?
- Which aspect of language learning (reading, listening, speaking or writing) do you think can be supplemented by gaming? Why? You could build on your understanding of your country’s curriculum to answer this question.
Thanks for sharing this interesting work. It does provide some sharp insights into how it might be possible to bridge informal out-of-class gaming experience to meeting the curriculum-guided formal learning goals, although there is evidence from your introduction how to achieve this may need further exploration. With regard to discussion quesiton 2, I think reading and writing may be the major areas that gaming can help language learners enhance in. As far as I know, the most popular digital games among today’s students are the mobile or PC versions of MMORPGs. As the paper suggests, if they are required to play the target language version of one of these games and report what they have achieved in the game, they will have to develop independently their reading skills so they can understand the in-game texts essential for them to survive and thrive in the game world. Also they can practice their writing and communicative skills as they take part in the myriad global gaming communities where players have to use a shared language to exchange information and experience interactively and build connections with each other.
Actually, I am not a fan of any kind of digital game and I seldom play games online. But I know that almost everyone around me plays a game called Arena of Valor, which is popular in mainland China, especially among teenagers. I often hear the words “First Blood”, “Double Kill”, and “Triple Kill” when someone playing this game besides me. The reason why I can remember these words quite well even though I am not the guy who is actually playing the game is that these words occur at a high frequency and would be broadcast aloud during the game.
As you mentioned, video gaming offers a comprehensive language rich environment for students to interact with L2 in a meaningful and immersive manner. I suppose this kind of language immersive environment makes a contribution to language reading, listening and speaking especially when the other players use the target language to communicate with the learners. Learners have to use their L2 to speak with other players, to comprehend what other players say during the game. And also learners should use their L2 to read some texts and settings in the game in order to play the game. Furthermore, when the learners use their L2 and work with other players as a team to defeat other players or pass the game, the successful collaboration experience within the game triggers more motivation for learners to use their L2.
1. To be honest, I am not a game player, but I still remember some expressions in the game named Arena of Valor, such as “first blood,” “double kill” and “triple kill.” These words appear when I make an achievement that is meaningful for me in an authentic context. In addition, the voice effect of dubbing is vivid, leading to a deep impression. And high frequency also plays a role in helping me remember these words.
2. Some real-time computer games like PUBG allows players to practice listening and speaking skills by communicating with other players of different linguistic background. The authentic context creates a need for them to talk to coordinate their movement and attacks. However, learners are more likely to improve their reading skills in single-player games because the primary language task involved in them is to understand the rules and particular names of the tools they need to use.
In mainland China, there is a dilemma regarding whether we should incorporate gaming in language teaching because the risk of distracting students may lead to more drawbacks than its benefits.
1.One game I always play when I’m boring is Fun Fest. And every time I remove three or more animals from the layout, the system will use a funny voice saying “good” “great” “amazing” “excellent” and “unbelievable”. I think these words impress me a lot is because it happens when I successfully remove animals, which makes me satisfied. And also because it repeats so many times with the specific voice.
2. Since more and more video games in our couI think listening skill
2.Since more and more games tend to use English as the warning tone and background sound, which is usually with a high frequency and also attractive, game players can get familiar with these sounds so that their listening skills are improved.
To be honest, I am an active game player, so I have learned several words while playing, such as “ally”, “gank”, “backdooring”, “turret”, etc. I am especially impressed with the word “backdooring”. It means someone is sneakily attacking your base and it happens a lot in the game. Therefore, in order to prevent such a raid, we need to shout “watch out backdooring!” frequently to our teammates during the game.
As for the second question, I suppose speaking can benefit easily from video gaming as it provides learners with an authentic environment to use their target language. In the Chinese mainland curriculum, speaking is an underrated part because students will not be evaluated for their speaking competence. Besides, since English is considered a foreign language, students only have access to practice their speaking in classes through some simulation and role-plays. However, games can be available for them to practice speaking English in the real world as they can communicate with other gamers, who may share different L1 with them, so as to reach their common goals in the game. Thus, I believe speaking ability can benefit from the games.
1. I never play English games, but I always hear some words from my friends. Like the words ‘gank’, a strategy means setting a trap to catch other people in the game like DOTA. Some of my friends who played games together would use these game words in their chatting. These words are short and powerful, easy to be memorized. Sometimes when people do not want to say the meaning in Chinese, they would use English words instead.
2. I think playing games can practice speaking or listening skills. The curriculum in mainland China is test-targeted with an emphasis on reading and writing. Some listening or speaking class uses drills to practice sentence pattern, but students can not benefit from these classes. They cannot communicate with others but memorize some scattered sentences. Games are attractive to most students compared with the traditional class. Therefore, students can actively participate in and practice their listening or speaking skills with motivation and authentic materials by using games.
1. I seldom play English version game for the sake of the resources, while I do remember when I was still young, a game called “Plants vs Zombie” was quite popular. A well-known “quote” in this game is “a huge wave of zombie is approaching”, which I believe that some of the students still have an impression on. Since the game was quite popular, this quote was said a lot by players to imply something horrible approaching. Thus, the words left some impressions in players’ minds.
2. I think all the four aspects can be supported by gaming, because gaming is a multimodal format of language. Game players need to read some instruction in the system to get familiar with its operation. Listening mainly refers to the communication with Non-player character or listening to voice messages from other players. Speaking is quite the same as the listening, progressing through communication in games. As for writing, most of the games are set with plots or some contexts, like the game DOTA is set in a legendary context. Some players may create fan fictions based on the game characters, plots, contexts and so on. Indeed, gaming is suitable for cultivating self-directed learning for a group of students who are interested in gaming. However, lacking the access of resources and gaps between classroom content and gaming should still be considered. Thus, although gaming can be a good supplement for learning, only some of the elements in gaming is suitable for English lessons. For learners in mainland, especially for those secondary learners, gaming acts only as a resource rather than a teaching format.
1. Honestly, personally I am not a fan of video games, so I don’t have much experience of playing them or learning something in English from them. However, I do have some impression of this popular game called “King of Glory”, and when people around me play it, I notice there are some expressions like “first blood, double kill, triple kill …”, and when the players talk to each other, there are also some abbreviations of terms like “ADC”. These words impressed me because I really heard them a lot and there are so many people playing the game. Even for someone like me who doesn’t play video games knows these words. So I think the games are very successful.
2. I think listening and speaking can be supplemented by gaming. As I have noticed, some games are like a platform for people from different countries to play, which means they can meet players around the world and they need to talk to each other in English. In this authentic context, these players must push themselves to understand and communicate with their teammates so they can win the game. That’s why I think listening and speaking can be supplemented.
1. The most impressive word for me is “slain” in the digital game of Glory of Kings. This word appears frequently in the game: An enemy has been slain; An ally has been slain; You have been slain; You have slain an enemy.
2. From my perspective, reading and vocabulary learning can be supplemented by gaming. The most popular game in China Glory of Kings has issued an English version, and let’s take it as an example. Gamers have to read the introductions of numerous characters to decide which one they would like to choose. Besides, they must read the explanations of different abilities and fully understand them in order to use them wisely in the battles. Meanwhile, gamers are likely to encounter some new words and they may check their meanings in the dictionary.
1. Actually, I haven’t played a lot of games. From my previous experience, some words like “home”, “again”, “congratulations”,etc. usually exist in games even they are not English games. There will be icons or animations besides the word to indicate the meaning of the word that everyone can understand and they will acquire the vocabulary unconsciously.
2. I am not so familiar with games, but I will try to imagine. In English games, the ability to listen, read and speak may have the opportunity to be enhanced. In order to understand the basic rules and operations of the game, the player has to read the post on the home page and what others said in the hatbox. If the game needs oral communication, the teammates and opponents may come from other countries that speaking English is the only choice, the player needs to understand what the other said and express themselves in English.
Honestly, I found it extremely difficult to post comments this week because I am not a game play at all. However, I will try my best.
I remember words like “first blood”, “second blood”, “Penta kill”, “shut down” in a Chinese digital game named: Gluttonous Snake. I remember these words simply because they repeated often during my friends’ playing.
I think the reading and writing is the two main aspects of language learning in games. For the reading, game players should read through all the rules of games and understand what their online friends sent in their chat box. To respond their online friends, game players sure need to write back online. They may learn to use some online games’ words or abbreviations to represent themselves and save time, like ASAP, CM (cover me!)…
1. I don’t play video games, so I asked my brother this question, and he told me that “goal” is the word he learned from the video game “FIFA.” Because when he scored, the narrator in the game would scream, “GOAL!!!!!” and the word is highly mentioned during the match.
2. I think language learners’ listening and speaking competence will be enhanced by playing video games. Many real-time games require players to cooperate and communicate during the game. When playing international games, the players mainly speak English, so the learners have to understand others and speak English if they want to play the game.
I personally do not play too many video games, so I may skip the first question.
I think through playing games, learners can improve their speaking and reading skills. Because I have seen some friends play some international games and communicate with others through that channel in English. They may casually talk about themselves, make fun of others’ behavior in the game or talk about the strategy they will use in the game. And when you play a game that has some plots of the character, you need to read the lines and follow the instructions. Learners have to look up the word that motivates their autonomous learning.
I have learned some words like triple, quadra, penta when I played an online game. TRIPLE KILL/ QUADRA KILL/ PENTA KILL may be heard when the player defeats his/ her opponents. Beside, I have learned the use of present perfect tense, because I often hear the sentence “you have slayed an enemy”. After frequent exposure to this expression, I am gradually familiar with the form of present perfect tense.
I don’t play video games, so I don’t have any experience learning a language from a game.
I guess players can be active learners in games. The online game community provides an engaging context for learners to participate in co-construction and negotiation to build collaborative and social relationships with others. In this case, language learners are less likely to be frustrated and anxious and develop positive attitudes towards language learning.
Players are immersed in authentic communication, which gives them access to speaking, reading, typing, and listening enjoyably. But the interactions with other players online cannot be predetermined, so the language that learners are exposed to cannot be controlled, and language forms cannot be fully anticipated, which may not be considered a technique in school learning, especially for young learners.
1. I am not a fan of video games, so I do not have much to say about this. A roommate of mine at college was a big fan of Honor of Kings, and I heard “double kill”, “triple kill”, and “legendary” so many times when she was playing this game. These words are so impressive to me simply because they appear frequently in each round of the game.
2. I think reading, listening and speaking can be enhanced by gaming. Players sometimes need to read the instruction or plots to continue the game, in which way they read to gain information. And games enable players to learn vocabulary in a natural way, which is also beneficial to their reading ability. As for listening, English games provide opportunities for players to immerse in an English-speaking environment since the audio is read in English. They may need to communicate with other players, which can also enhance their listening and speaking. I am not sure if there are games that entail players to write something in English. One of my concerns is that players may can not receive corrective feedback in games when they speak and write in English.
I am a big fan of Rusty Lake games. Playing escape games either on your phone or in real life is an excellent way to practice reading because whenever you have difficulties escaping, you will need to search for walkthrough guides online to solve the puzzles in the game, which is an excellent opportunity for some authentic reading.
I barely play video games, but some of my friends do. I always heard words like “first blood”, “double kills”, “triple kills” something like these, which impressed me a lot because the dubbing was so infectious, mighty and energetic, therefore, haunted in mind for a long time.
As I mentioned before, I am not a video games person, but I guess it will be conducive to students’ reading and listening skills cause when you are playing English games, you will get excited, and there will be an adrenaline rush, which makes you 100% focused on what you are doing. By doing so, those words and expressions you see and hear will be entrenched in your mind. And all these can be transferred to knowledge when you come across relative topics in school lives, which is in accordance with one of the pedagogical values of our curriculum: “learning from doing.”
I seldom play English version games, but there are some English vocabularies that appear in games mainly written in Chinese. When I play rhythm games, I can always see words like “good” “bad” “perfect” “miss” “full combo” “fast/slow”. They are impressive because they appear so frequently, and they are the assessment of my performance.
I think reading skills can be supplemented by gaming. Firstly, as the blog said, in-game text can provide players with motivation and an immersive environment. Also, English menus and instructions can directly show the players how to use these words authentically. Formiliar with vocabulary is helpful for reading.
1. Whenever I can, I try to play a few rounds of some games that are quite popular among my primary and secondary school students and which they have introduced me to. Whenever they describe their game victories or defeats, I feel a bit lost, because the lingo (jargon of a particular gaming community) and phrases they use in their descriptions are specific to a particular game’s contexts and it is hard for me to acknowledge what they say unless I immerse myself into the games they play as well. So here are some examples of the games I have played and their lingo, which I found interesting:
Among Us: Impostor (a player who is undistinguishable at the beginning of the game until he starts killing, and he kills as many Crewmates as he can to win the game), Crewmate (players in the game), Sus (a suspicious player who is believed to be an impostor and killer)
Minecraft: Noob (an inexperienced/new player who may be regarded as playing poorly), Creeper (a mob that silently approaches other players and explodes), Enderman (a mob that attacks players who look into his eyes)
These words and many others not mentioned are peculiar and eye-catching because they are new to me, seem to have appeared thanks to the creation of these games, give players a universal dialect to adhere to and which is mutually understood, and they enable players to establish rapport and acceptance.
2. When playing games such as Roblox, Among Us and Text or Die, for instance, reading and writing skills are definitely aspects of language learning being fully utilized and reinforced, since players have to read and follow instructions that pop up from time to time to avoid being targeted at by mobs/villains. At the same time, as many players are also involved in the game and they cross paths on the platform, they often chat with one another via the texting function so they can alert and cover up for one another. I know that other MMORPGs embed instant verbal chat and recording functions which allow players to communicate with other players instantly. So players of different age ranges can practise their speaking and listening skills by verbalizing their thoughts and responding to other players’ comments using their L1 and L2. However, this same affordance may also lead to cyberbullying and the use of foul language, so I will likely stay away from supplementing my lessons with online games played by external multiplayers who may pose threats to my students and opt to use safe and secure online games developed by trustworthy educational enterprises and for a private group of users, and which can further coincide with and reinforce literacy skills taught within the classroom.
1. I seldom played video games, not to mention English games. But I heard some English vocabularies when my friends played Honor of Kings, a Chinese game. One of the English vocabularies is “slain”. It is the past participle of slay, which means being killed. It is impressive because I had not learned this word before and maybe because I heard this word for many times.
2. I think playing video games can supplement the learning of reading because players need to read instructions of the games to know how to play and they will also encounter some situations that require them to read while playing the games.