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A Virtual Game to Teach Children Languages. «The biggest problems, he said: children studying languages do not get to practice the language in their daily lives, they do not get much attention from teachers in large classrooms and they are often afraid to make mistakes when they do try to speak different languages. Those are the problems that Wiz World Online aims to solve. Kids choose an avatar and pick a scene, like a castle in a fantasy land or a supermarket in the United States. They are confronted with challenges, like dodging flying monsters or buying fruit, all of which ask them to use English. If they hit a ceiling in their language capabilities, they go to the wizards' library and read so-called magical books that teach them lessons. »
I certainly have had the described experience of studying languages in school, but being unable to function in those languages in real-world situations. I think the concept of virtual immersion is a wonderful one. I can easily see how it could help with practical reading, and aural comprehension. I can also see how it might help with writing, although much text-based software limits the expected responses too severely. Perhaps this is more advanced in that way.
I wonder if they address the problems of speaking and pronunciation and, if yes, how they address these.
I greatly benefitted from old-school virtual immersion: I attended Middlebury Summer Language School, where we lived for several weeks in a language commune speaking no English. But cutting-edge virtual language immersion is an exciting prospect.
Even if you have the opportunity to speak it with others, you need native speakers, not other students.
I'm from Alabama and took two years of French during high school. I'm fairly certain that, even though our teacher had no heavy southern accent, his French was accented, and what we learned from him became even further accented. There were only three of us in the advanced class, and so we had one-on-one instruction all the time. We spoke it in class, read it, wrote it, and could understand our teacher when he spoke it...slowly. 🙂
Flash forward two years. I went to France and England as a graduation present from my parents. Many in the group I was with (AIFS) were French students with their teacher. Everywhere our group went in Paris (not so much in the non-urban areas), as soon as we opened our mouths to say anything in French, the clerks or whatever would grimace and signal for someone to come speak English to us, or they'd switch into English themselves. We had no way of knowing what we were doing wrong.
My aunt, however, had a wonderful experience in Germany where the elderly vegetable cart man who brought fresh veggies around her neighborhood every few days would teach her a few words of German, and she'd teach him some English. They both learned enough to get by during these conversations with a friendly native speaker.
Wish I'd had that. 🙁
This game sounds interesting, though.
We DID have one positive experience in Paris...if you view it from a certain perspective. The French teacher assigned one of her students to go up to a man waiting for the bus and ask him when the bus was expected to arrive. She asked her question, and without pausing, the man said, "Non, non, non!" He then corrected her pronunciation and answered her when she got it right to his satisfaction. She was red as a beet, but...like I said: from a certain perspective, it was positive. 🙂
I lived in France for a year. This was one of my experiences mentioned above. Everywhere in France the people were constructive and helpful with my language acquisition and pronunciation. It didn't take many months (along with a haircut and a wardrobe change) before I could pass as French, at least in simple conversations.
However, in Paris, as soon as a clerk detected you were a tourist — and in many cases the mere act of entering their store was enough to tip them off — you could catch the brunt of some very unhelpful attitude. I travelled all around France, and never experienced that problem in any other part of the country.
As for Middlebury Summer Language School, your language community does include many students, but includes also the native-speaker instuctors, who are present at all meals and activities. They stay in the dormatories with the students and are actively involved in every aspect of daily life. It is (or at least was till virtual immersion gaming) the next best thing to being there.
The games would be a great way to cement the new language in a child's mind. When I was small, I had to take classes to correct a speech impediment, and we learned by playing games. You could move ahead in the game by correctly pronouncing words with your problem sounds.
My high school Spanish classes didn't do me a lot of good until I had to work with patients who spoke only Spanish. Unfortunately, much of what I learned was riddled with local slang, so when I moved to a different region, my attempts at Spanish earned me some puzzled looks and even laughter.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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