This activity has a really interesting theme: How a game can help you learn English.
When I was a kid, I used to play old videogames, specifically Sega Genesis, because not always we had internet at home, so an old computer with a emulator with old games was my only option in somedays, and that really helped me to learn somethings in English, I was a kid with zero English class at school and no incentive from anyone, but the games naturally lead me to learn while I played and needed to try to understand somethings.
So with my experiences, I will leave some topics of how games helps to learn English, and more, in the end, how gamefy your life helps you learn anything.
Vocabulary
Playing video games in English can help expand a player's vocabulary as you are exposed to a variety of words and phrases that may not be common in their everyday lives. You will hear and see new words that you will learn just naturally, like almost every game that I played, when you starts, appear the word "GO" in the screen, each game puts in a diferent style, but all of them had this, and even that my child self did'nt know yet what that word means, I learned that everytime that word appears I could start, I had to move forward. Other example it was a shooting game that I used to played, and every time the gun bullet ended, I heard someone repeting "Reload, reload" I did'nt know what was saying but everytime I hear "reload" i remember of that and I know that I have to reload something.
Listening
Players can improve their listening skills by listening to dialogue and instructions during gameplay. As in the exemple that I gave in the last topic, about "reload", or we have to in "Mortal Kombat" phrases of Shao Kahn like "Finish him", or of the characters like Scorpion that says "Get over here", and all of that improve your listening, but in some games you have to listening more, instructions of how to play or a piece of the history, dialogue between the characters, so will generate a necesisty to pay attention and will improve the listening.
Reading
Probably this is the topic the you will most improve with games, because you will have visual estimulation for this all the time, games always have something writing in the scenario, something written on the graffiti on the wall, on the store window, in the name of the shops, on the police car, on the signs in the forest, on the post-its in the nave, etc. So you will read a lot in a game, and many games have written text, such as subtitles, dialogue, and instructions, which, of course, will help improve reading skills. Try to play a RPG in English, you will have to read the hole story, the modern ones, you will have to listen too, but as I said, I played the old ones, and I needed to read everything or I will miss something, I played and finished sometimes the "Shining Force", I really liked this one, and even when I did'nt understand what was writeen, I read and tries to make some conclusion of that and even like this I was able to understand the hystory and finish the game, and eveytime I played again, I understanded a little more.
Grammar
Usually games have right texts, they probably have an revision work and try to always publish a game with good text, so by being exposed to correctly structured English sentences during gameplay, players can improve their understanding of English grammar. After reading the texts in games written correctly, you naturally find it strange and realize when it is incorrect. Games that have puzzles, pranks and puns make you learn this. And probably you will learn too, having to search what the text means to advance in the game, I remember having really difficuties to pass some phase on the Disney game Pocahontas, because I didnt know more what to do, I didnt have another place to go in the game, and nothing happens, but the game had some tips when you approach some objects, and it has a rock that, for me was just a scenario object, but that tip that appears in the rock clearly influence you to try push the rock, but I didnt understand what was writen and I take so long to decide to translate and to search the meaning of that text, and then I was able to push the rock and continue the game. Something simillar happen to, with the game of Beauty and the beast, when the farmer gives to Bella the instructions of wich path follow in the forest, but I just ignored , because I didnt understand that text, and after had problems to pass the phase of the forest, until I search and translate the farmer instructions. Well, when you search translation for the texts you gain vocabullary but also understand the structure of the phrases.
Pocahontas game
Beauty and the Beast game
Pronunciation
If its not a game with microphone and interaction between players, it's more difficult to train this skill, but some games have speaking options where players can communicate with other players. This can help improve pronunciation. For me with the old games, it helped because my hearing improved, when I heard Scorpio saying "Come here", I tried to repeat what he was saying a million times, and sometimes speaking at the same time as him in the game, and that happend with almost all the games, when I heard something a lot of times I always repeat too.
Suspects - game with voice interaction between the players
Culture
For sure, we already consume a lot of content from US or others countries, with hollywood, music, brands and all the pop world, and the games make part of it, with games in English we can understand the culture of that country and understand too how they think, and not just about the English speakers countries, but we have a lot of japaneses games that make possible we have contact with they culture too, without speaking japanese, using the English, that its almost a World language. An example that i really like its the games about ninjas and warriors, like Shinobi or Samurai X. But I think my favorite it the game Valis, with that japanese teenager style of Yuko, that becames a warrior after.
Valis
Shinobi
Gamify
Gamification is the concept of adapting a process with elements from a game, for exemple, assign a score, ranking, points, rewards, and others games elements. You can include that in any process, in work, Study, or your daily routine, transform anything in a game makes more interisting, Fun and motivating.
For study you can assign for exemple a certain value of points for each module of a course, when you finish a module you grow in a rank, and you can give yourself rewards for each pontuation you archieve.
There are several ways to gamify life, you can search for more fun ways on the internet, but definitely by gamifying you will fly.
Well in this activity I shared with you a little more of how games helped me with English, let me know what you think about my English now, what I have to improve, still dificult to plein express myself in a different language, so comment bellow what do you think, and I also shared what I consumed of games when I was a kid, let me know what kind of games do you like too!
Image generated by Bing AI
