知之者，不如好之者；好之者，不如乐之者 -- 孔子（551 – 479 BCE）

BBC News: Games help you "learn and play" (18 January, 2005)

The title in Chinese is one of my favorite mottos by Confucius(孔子), which means “Knowledge is not equal to devotion. Devotion is not equal to joy.” I like it, because I believe the joy of learning is essential and the power of enjoyment boosts learning.

The news, as you can see, actually is not really new. But there are still a lot of interesting things stimulating my thinking. Basically, it tells us how a US researcher, Ravi Purushotma thinks games, have the potential in foreign language teaching. You may find the name is a little bit familiar. Yes, he is the author of the article “You’re not studying, you’re just…”mentioned in Jiao's blog.

According to Purushotma, “[i]nherent fun of game playing” makes language learning “much less of a chore.” Undoubtedly, intrinsic motivation (Maslwo, 1970) is extremely powerful and critical in one’s learning process. Purushotma used The Sims as an example, saying The Sims is good to teach vocabulary and grammar. It seems that The Sims is the most often recommended game by researchers who are interested in language learning through e-gaming. Vocabulary acquisition is also the skill that most researchers in this field emphasize. However, Purushotma thought lack of spoken language is a downside of The Sims. To engage language learners in speaking in playing the game, he suggested The Sims Online be a good choice.

Some researchers have introduced games in classrooms. For example, Civilization III has been used by Squire (2005) to teach students history and geography in the class. But, of the limited literature about gaming and language learning I’ve read so far, there is relatively less published work based on empirical studies. Most are descriptive studies to analyze the potential and the possibility of using gaming in language learning. Lack of research-based studies urges me to choose this topic for my dissertation.

I haven’t played The Sims yet. So, I’m not sure how it could be when Purushotma said that tools made by the designers and fans make it easy for teachers to “adapt parts of the game for their own lessons.” It makes sense to me that language learners acquire real-life vocabulary while playing The Sims. But I’m very curious about how it facilitates grammar learning as Purushotma motioned. One friend has lent me some The Sims discs. I am going to have a try and know more about it.

I really like one sentence said by Purushotma: “One goal would be to break what I believe to be the false assumption that learning and play are inherently oppositional.” Yes, learning and playing in harmony will help us gain tremendous efficiency in learning. Why not create more opportunities to amuse our minds for learning?

Finally, there is one question. Should that be “Good games” instead of “God games” under the title?

References

Maslow, A. Motivation and Personality. Second Ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.

Squire, K. (2004). Replaying history: learning world history through playing Civilization III. Retrieved April 25, 2007, from http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1149126.1149188