October 2007 — Features
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On a Quest for English
"For 20 years, we've been talking about how we will soon be able to put you and a person from China together in the same virtual space to talk and interact.Well, we can do that right now with MMORPGs."—Edd Schneider, The State University of New York at Potsdam
Virtual Immersion
The Northwestern MMORPG study was first suggested to Gooch by John Nordlinger, program manager for the Microsoft Research group. Nordlinger focuses on using gaming themes and technologies to enhance curriculum. He is currently talking with academics about collaborating on a game to help young kids with algebra and geometry.
One of the best things about these kinds of virtual worlds for English language learners, he says, is they provide them with a safe environment in which to make mistakes. "You aren't your avatar," he says. "You can use that avatar to make mistakes in a game without losing face. And that's a very good thing." (Rankin found in her post-study interviews that this aspect of the EQ2 experience was especially important to her Asian subjects.)
In response to the notion that WoW and EQ2 are likely to salt players' vocabularies with odd terms not found in most classroom language texts (sword, elf, wizard), Nordlinger observes that many students in American English classes are now reading the Harry Potter novels, which operate from a similarly exotic lexicon. "Yes, there are skeletons and vampires in EverQuest, but don't think they're not already in English class," he says.
Whatever their shortcomings, games like WoW and EQ2 provide ELLs with a uniquely scalable immersive experience, which Nordlinger believes is essential in the language-learning process. "The best way to learn a language is through immersion," he says. "The only way you can provide an immersive experience that scales is in a virtual world of the sorts created by Sony Online and Blizzard."
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In Nordlinger's view, though, the current crop of MMORPGs is unlikely to find its way directly into the ESL classroom. He sees them rather as curriculum-enhancing technologies. "I think they're going to work best as extracurricular solutions," he says. "Someday someone is really going to get this. They're going to integrate [gaming] into their classroom, and they're going to find that kids learn geometrically more when their extracurricular activities are complementing the classroom."
And what about the dangers of kids' overdosing on role-playing games? "Many people say to me, 'What do I do about my son who's playing World of Warcraft all the time?' I say, 'Tell him he can play as much as he wants, but he has to play it in a different language.'"
-John K. Waters is a freelance writer based in Palo Alto, CA.
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