Hey, what’s up, hello (Fetty Wap, 2015) 

Welcome back amigos! This blog is going to be an insight into my discovery of Digital Game Based Language Learning (DGBLL). I have never been one for online gaming, and I highly doubt I will ever have an interest in being a ‘gamer’, so being asked to evaluate a game for language learning purposes as part of m college work was met with my unwelcome groan and a standard thought about dropping out of university altogether. As per, I soldiered on and did what needed to be done, and what I found surprised me.

The first thing I did was research the background and benefits of DGBLL, and the most interesting case study I found was based on an experiment where two groups were taught Arabic (Group A was treated with DGBL method whereas Group B treated with The Non-DGBL method) and the results showed that group A performed significantly higher than group B in a final evaluation. (Aziz, Subiyanto and Harlanu, 2018)

After reading this article and others like it I began to get curious. I started off small, I downloaded PixWords (by Dekvoir, Inc).

This handy little vocabulary-boosting app is full of crosswords puzzles and can be played in 50 languages. I immediately opted for the French language option and I have to admit I was already struggling by ‘Niveau 2’.

The game shows a picture and highlights the row (which you’ve selected) that the word relating to the picture is supposed to fill, as well as the letters that should be used to fill the row. As you can see for a non-native speaker it’s not exactly an obvious answer, and it encourages you to take out your dictionary and expand your vocabulary. It was clear to me how a game like this could be of benefit to the language learning process, and I would be lying if I said I didn’t become a bit addicted to it.

I then, apprehensively, went on to read about games that fall into the bracket of a massively multiplayer online game (MMOG), which refers to ‘video games that allow a large number of players to participate simultaneously over an internet connection.’ (Techopedia.com, 2018). In an attempt to further understand the benefit a MMOG could have on language learning I decided to look at one of the biggest online games in the world: League of Legends (LoL).

From some quick research, and speaking with someone who has played the game for a few years now (“the greatest League of Legends player of all time”), what I learned is: in LoL the base game traditionally lasts 30 minutes and has a set-up of two teams with five players each. The game has chat functions so players can type to their own team as well as to members of the opposition. LoL is an e-sport with international tournaments held at a professional level every year, the main two being held in LA and Berlin respectively. As the platform is multi-cultural there is often players who speak a variety of languages at any one time. To overcome any language barriers the game chat has a ping system i.e. specific options to send messages saying ‘on my way’, ‘danger’, ‘assist me’ etc. This is a useful feature because it is a fast-paced game that involves a complex co-ordination of 5 people at the same time.

Basically, it is possible to play this game in a language that is not your native one if you so wish to. However, if you find players willing to communicate and play alongside you in an effort to further improve your language skills, you may want to already be able to communicate well in that language as it is, as I already mentioned, a fast paced game which requires complex co-ordination of multiple players at once. If you’re already able to communicate in your target language with a high-proficiency and you’re simply looking to better your ability to speak that language in a high-stress environment then by all means, take a swing at it.

I hope you learned something from this blog entry, I know I definitely learned a lot while writing it. I would like to think that maybe one of you would be motivated to give DGBLL a go in the future, but I think I’ll be sticking to my tried and tested methods of language learning. Unfortunately I still don’t ever see myself being a “gamer”.

Until next time,

Kayla xo