海角大神

Alvaro Rodriguez didn鈥檛 love kindergarten, but after school he would grab his dad鈥檚 gaming console, boot up 鈥淭he Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,鈥� and lead the charge in a gripping crusade to save his virtual kingdom.聽

He also had a side quest: learning English.聽

When Mr. Rodriguez moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States as a toddler, 鈥渁ll I really knew was Spanish,鈥� says the sophomore at Boston College, who credits gaming for engaging him when school lagged. 鈥淚 had my video games, and that鈥檚 kind of how I had that [language] practice.鈥�

Mr. Rodriguez is one of 2.7 billion gamers around the world, participants in an industry that now eclipses music and film combined and has accelerated during the pandemic. Many of those gamers are learning English in the process, an unexpectedly productive outcome of a pastime often considered a time vacuum.

鈥淭here are generations of people all over the world growing up using video games informally to teach themselves English,鈥� says Jonathon Reinhardt, an associate professor at the University of Arizona and president of the Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO). 鈥淥r, they would play the game because they wanted to play the game. And since it wasn鈥檛 available in their first language, they would 鈥� incidentally learn the language.鈥澛�

There鈥檚 no way to pinpoint the number of gamers learning English, Dr. Reinhardt says, but he estimates there to be 鈥渁t least a couple hundred million who are thinking about it,鈥� based on the number of young gamers to English language learners.聽鈥淚t鈥檚 just far more popular and far more widespread than we realize,鈥� he says.聽

The pandemic has seen the gaming community grow. The percentage of players who call themselves 鈥渟erious gamers鈥� increased from 63% to 82% during the pandemic, according to a study by strategy and marketing firm Simon-Kucher & Partners. The group also found that people are gravitating toward more interactive, time-consuming games, with 60% reportedly opting for more multiplayer games during the spring lockdowns.

All that gaming has an impact on language comprehension. A 2017 peer-reviewed study published in CALICO Journal found that of young Danes who played video games in English, those who did so regularly outside school scored higher on English vocabulary tests than their peers who did not.聽

With video games, 鈥渁ll of a sudden English becomes an instrument; something that鈥檚 very useful for them in order to progress in the game,鈥� says the author of the study, Signe Hannibal Jensen, assistant professor in the department of language and communication at the University of Southern Denmark. This shifts kids鈥� focus from 鈥渓earning to learn,鈥� as in a classical school setting, to 鈥渓earning to play.鈥澛�

It makes sense that 鈥渢he very things that we can鈥檛 drag out of students in school are the kinds of things that they鈥檙e doing for fun on their own in online extramural environments,鈥� says Steven Thorne, a professor of second language acquisition at Portland (Oregon) State University and of linguistics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e sharing an activity. You鈥檙e sharing a passion,鈥� he says.聽

The language learning isn鈥檛 confined to English. From internet-spotty central Pennsylvania, Fiona Girotti聽explains how her love of K-pop led her to download an online gaming platform she uses to learn Korean.聽She says learning grammar online is tough, and gaming isn鈥檛 a direct replacement for in-person instruction. 鈥淏ut you get good at conversations and sentences, things you can say to anyone.鈥�

And her online language practice is working. When Ms. Girotti聽listens to K-pop now, she can understand many of the lyrics. It鈥檚 not really the same as being in class, though, she says 鈥撀犫�渙f course, classes are structured,鈥� so 鈥渨hen you鈥檙e just me, [learning independently], you don鈥檛 really understand the grammar.鈥� She uses a grammar app on her phone to figure out tricky sentence construction.

Dr. Thorne notes that video games are not a perfect solution. Some gaming environments 鈥渁re very language heavy and language rich, others don鈥檛 really require much language at all,鈥� he says.聽And gaming isn鈥檛 always virtuous, he cautions 鈥� players can become addicted, and some games can promote extreme violence.

But, combine a quality, communication-dependent game like 鈥淲orld of Warcraft鈥� 鈥� Dr. Thorne鈥檚 choice 鈥� with the聽15 hours a week聽kids spend gaming, and learning will come out of that, he says.聽

In the future, video games might become a more聽utilized option among the tools language learners already use, including phone apps, podcasts, YouTube videos, and in-person instruction. Dr. Reinhardt says it makes sense that gaming would increasingly seep into more formal classroom settings. 鈥淲hat we鈥檙e going to see is a generation of people who grew up with games and recognize inherently their potential as learning objects,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey have the skills and the abilities to build these sorts of things.鈥澛�

Mr. Rodriguez, the Boston College student, has moved on to learning a third language, Korean, and created several language-learning groups on Discord, a popular online platform where gamers connect. 鈥淚 wanted to create that safe space ... where people can come on, they can check out resources they like and really just, you know, grow.鈥� His online group Korean Language Exchange has 690 members who game or just practice Korean together.

He says that school was sometimes 鈥渢edious鈥� when he was younger. 鈥淲hen it comes to video games, they engaged me. 鈥� I guess that engagement is what鈥檚 important, you know, when people want to learn languages.鈥�