Video Games and Second Language Acquisition: Six Genre Case Studies by deHaan Jonathan

Author:deHaan, Jonathan [deHaan, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Common Ground Publishing
Published: 2013-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Shenmue

(action adventure game)

12

20

65

13

13

15

4.7

4.2

4.6

Marsh

(educational virtual pet game)

12

14

59

25

24

29

6

5.4

5.1

English of the Dead

(educational action video game)

25

37

88

-

-

-

5.2

6

4.1

Pokemon Pearl

(role playing video game)

22

25

50

17

21

30

3.5

3.9

4.1

Mario Party 4

(party video game)

24

34

60

11

11

30

7

7

7

Professor Layton and the Curious Village

(adventure puzzle video game)

18

20

60

25

24

30

5.1

5.8

5.8

Game Interactivity

Different video games require different types and degrees of activity from players. English of the Dead made the player write down English words with a stylus on the DS touch pad. This may have helped the subject's memorization of vocabulary. The subject in this study seems to have had to concentrate on the language in the game and answer the questions on her own. She seems to have been conscious about the vocabulary in this study's game and this may have contributed to second language acquisition. Another effect of the physical interactivity in this study's game may have been that she learned how to spell (and pronounce) the words better. The interactivity may have made it easy for her to remember the words in the game, which is contrary to the results of deHaan, Reed and Kuwada's (2010) and deHaan and Kono's (2010) studies. The results may have been different because of the genre or the type of interactivities in the games; the interaction and language tasks were intrinsically linked in this educational game.

In Shenmue, the subject just listened to, read, or saw the appearing language without inputting language or making conversation or sentences in her mind. The main character, rather than her, acted. One of the things that she had to do was to listen to lots of people, and push a button in order to achieve the next line of dialog. It can be said that this game has little opportunity to practice English output by making sentences. She could not practice or confirm her English skills. This is one weak point of the game and genre. This adventure video game seemed to be more unilateral than other genres (such as virtual pet games); the player often does not require or receive any feedback based on her actions in the game. Additionally, although the subject was used to playing games and owned various game systems (PlayStation, Wii, SuperFamicon, DS, GameBoyAdvance), this game for the Dreamcast seemed to have been somewhat complex for her to control. One of the reasons for this is that the controller has many buttons. In fact, she answered "It is difficult to control Ryo. A andB buttons are usually in the same position on other game hardware. I have never played such a game ( 涼を操作するのが難しかった。ほかのゲームだと、 AB ボタンの位置はたいてい同じだ。こんなゲームやったことない。 );" this may have made the game more complex to play. It may be that the Dreamcast is a hardcore game system, while the others she had are for casual gamers. So, the usability of the Dreamcast may have been poor for the subject who was not used to and familiar with it. The subject could not pay attention to the language in the game because she tried to play and progress the game; the interaction required by the game was too much for the student. Her concentration

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