Analysis – Video Game Learning

Analysis – Strengths, Limitations, and Pedagogical Implications

Strengths:

Video Games can support in person learning. Traditional in person learning is effective for many students, but others need more flexibility such as being able to study at home. While there are online classes that are available, other options like self-study videos games or videos games that are meant to compliment in class instruction could help fill that gap.
Video Games can be used as additional reinforcement and practice. In a traditional classroom setting, a learner can go through a variety of tasks towards achieving the outcomes to demonstrate language proficiency for a particular language skill. After that lesson is over, it could be some time before a student revisits the vocabulary, grammar, and activities involved for that language function. A video game can have activities related to that same language function or scenario built in that could be replayed at anytime. This can serve as additional practice by being accessible on an on-demand basis for the learner.
Video Games can be used for self-study if a learner is registered in a school program or not. A learner could utilize a video game in either context.
Video Games can be motivating as the learner consistently gets opportunities to be challenged and succeed at various language tasks. Additionally, video games can be engaging through their interactivity and visual design. This interactivity whether with a non-player character or with a real game could help and increase interest and motivation and thus reduce affective filters. Affective filers can also be taken down due to the anonymity that gaming provides. Since the gamer could opt to secure their anonymity they may be more open to taking language risks than when their identity is open to others.
Through engagement and fun, games can increase interest and motivation in learning.
Videos Games can be designed to have situations in them that mimic real world communication scenarios. For example, a designer could include functional real-world tasks like ordering food or asking for directions.
Video Games can scaffold learning in all aspects. From vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, textual, and sociolinguistic. A designer could build an environment in which the gamer first comes into contact with vocabulary and relates it to objects on the screen, then practices pronunciation of the words they see, then is provided with a grammar rule, and practices the grammar rule, and finally role plays the structure with a non-player character.
Video Games can act as a portfolio of student work to highlight their learning accomplishments and provide a learner with the ability to refer back to what they have accomplished and take pride in those achievements.
Video Games can provide a learner with the ability to retry exercises many times without becoming dull quickly. This allows a learner to solidify their learning and not have to move on because the teacher feels the class is ready to move on to the next topic. In this scenario the learner is in charge of their learning and can decide when they feel comfortable to progress more into the game.
Video Games can become a community that provides support for a learner as they meet and play with new people. This community can provide a learner with the opportunity to feel belonging and friendship with others that are attempting to also develop their language skills.
Video Games can influence identity, and create communities of identity that the participant relates to, this can improve learner motivation and learning.
Video Games can be updated in order to stay relevant. In the same way a school can buy new versions of a textbook, video games can be updated or a new version of the game with a different style and feel could be produced and purchased.
Video Game development is not expensive, it can actually be very low cost to create a simple polygonal game that mirrors real life scenarios. Often many non-profits spend hundreds of thousands on new program’s curriculum development alone. Conversely, a whole video game with 50 levels of language progression could be created for half that amount.
Video Games can utilize both modeled language from the designer’s instructions and programmed artificial intelligence (A.I.) to deliver conversations between players and non-player characters. Either way the designer can deliver the learner with the type of communication they need. A.I. communication with NPC’s can be programmed to deliver only certain responses, so that the learner stays on schedule.

Limitations:

Some Video Games can be designed poorly for the purpose of language learning. Some video games in the market only teach some aspects of language that are needed for language acquisition. For example, some only teach grammar, others only vocabulary, and still others only teach the questions and answers common in some conversations.
Video Games despite mimicking real world scenarios can’t replace them. The use of body language and real world ques are difficult to mimic and design into the video game for a developer of educational software. Practicing in the real world is often high stakes and the memory of failure could be argued to help with retention. Whereas in an online video game setting, the stakes for failure are low, and thus a learner may not solidify the correct language information into their memory.
Video Games may be difficult for some learners to obtain either because of the cost of the game, the platform it is played on, or internet access. This creates a digital divide that prevents some learners from actively participating in this type of learning.
While some learners may prefer using updated methods such as gaming, there could be a digital divide between them and an instructor who may also need training to utilize the game with students effectively.
Game development requires a lot of know how that many language instructors may not have. This would require a lot of training and development for some, and this may not be time that institutions are open to providing to their instructors as professional development.
Video Game development is time consuming and will take some time to complete. If a teacher was to develop their own game it would take that teacher’s attention away more than usual. To save time, a teacher could use a pre-existing game, unlike myself who is looking to develop his own.
Graphics are always getting better, so the appearance of an educational game today could be outdated in a few years and turn off some possible gamers that want to learn.

Pedagogical Implications

To make a game I felt it was important to consult studies that assess pedagogical strategies for gamification. One study I looked at was Gamification and Mobile Learning: New Pedagogical Strategies by Ana Nobre and Vasco Nobre.

According to the study, motivation and improved learning can occur through gamification. In order to help that along and improve upon the passive nature that occurs in some classrooms they decided to develop a social game that would allow for diverse activities and require new pedagogical strategies. They reviewed pedagogical strategies from Kapp (2012) that they felt could help with engagement from learners. According to Nobre and Nobre (2022) rules in games are important as “every game has implicit or explicit rules and often the student’s involvement is as much to overcome challenges and even challenge the rules themselves.” (p. 638)

Nobre and Nobre, also look at the challenges a game presents. As stated by Nobre and Nobre (2022) “conflict, competition, and cooperation: every game is based on challenges and participants can compete with each other or collaborate to overcome them.” Additionally, games that offer rewards and feedback are important to players. These are feature that are expected from a player as they are assessed with a score of some kind. As explained by Nobre and Nobre (2022) “There are several types of “rewards” and also forms of reinforcement or feedback that aim to encourage the player to continue their participation.” Also, video games have a feature related to their levels of difficulty. Players are motived to better their performance by making it to new levels. Finally, according to Nobre and Nobre (2022), story creation is an important aspect of a game as “narrative is always a motivating and engaging element for many players who like to identify with a certain type of character or plot. Not all gamification features can be used in all situations.” (p. 638)

Chelawat and Sant (2022) looked at what gaming mechanics could help with motivation and engagement of learners. I think evaluating their study is important if I am going to be creating a game. It is important because for me to ensure my game provides the outcomes I would like it to, I need to understand what game mechanics lead to success. Learner engagement and motivation can be fostered by including game mechanics such as character generation, experience points and a leveling-up system, progress bars, leaderboards, storylines, challenges/quests, badges/medals and accomplishments, and virtual goods. Character generation relates to the use of avatars and characters that are assigned to players. According to Chelawat and Sant (2022) avatars that change based on learner progression “motivates a learner to move up in the ladder to win a new character.” (p. 821) The gaming mechanics associated with avatars begins as soon as a players logs in to create their profile and it continues as they progress through the game. Another game mechanic that is important is the experience and levelling up system as it stimulates competition, creates short-term and long-term goals, and provides feedback to the learner. Motivation can be sustained through feedback that players get over short periods of time when they have successes or receive rewards. Other aspects of that levelling-up system are things like progress bars, leaderboards, and scoreboards. Game mechanics can also include narratives and storylines. These are stated as important by Chelawat and Sant (2022) because ”a human mind always responds positively to the story as they can connect to them more personally, adding a narrative or a story will boost their motivation to complete the next level.” (p. 821) Badges, trophies, or other rewards in some form are important as they help improve engagement levels with learners. Additionally, they help learners to display their progression and knowledge. According to Chelawat and Sant (2022) , “these game mechanics motivates people as there are dynamics working underneath which stimulate the learners’ needs and desires. It triggers their need to get rewarded, attain status, accomplishing a task, self-expression, competition, and altruism. The effective combination of these mechanics stimulates learner to progress in their learning path.” (pg. 822)

The implementation of video games into the learning of second language learners would have pedagogical implications. A school and instructors would need to evaluate for what purpose are video games being implemented into their curriculum. The use of video games could be to teach a complete language program, it could be to be used as an in class computer lab supplement, it could be used as a homework or self-study supplement. If the games are being created to fill the place of an in-class curriculum, does part of the curriculum now include learning strategies geared towards making progress in video game settings or learning strategies for language acquisition. If the language acquisition is made through utilizing the game then it would seem that game play learning strategies to improve gaming literacy would be important. According to Alrajhi (2020) “L2 teachers who intend to use gaming for learning purposes can familiarize themselves with different genres of video games, content within video games, and the multitude of possibilities of designing learning tasks within the realm of gaming that take into account learners’ needs, interest, motivation, and achieve the intended language learning objectives.” (p. 12)

The results from the study by Hadin (2019) brings into light the importance of the utilization of online communication tools (OCT) in games. The study analyzed video games by type to highlight this. The game genre that had the most use of OCT in the games functions by percentage were role-playing and adventure games. This would be important for an administrator or instructor when considering what types of games to purchase. If a school was not using an in house game, but purchasing a pre-existing game then understanding which genre provides the most OCT would be important.

Another consideration for the implementation of the game, especially if built from scratch, would be how much of the communication would you want delivered through a modelled A.I. In video games, you can include non-player characters and provide them with a backstory, vocabulary, and ranges of conversations to work through the user with. One would have to consider if it would be better to have the non-player characters be conversationalists, or just point of contacts to introduce vocabulary through referencing in game items. Perhaps, the conversational aspect should be left to online communication tools between players where they attempt to achieve a goal in the game together through conversation. A.I. is getting sophisticated, even outside of a gaming context, you can see this with google A.I. where you can have a full conversation geared towards the needs of a second language learner. The pedagogical questions are many. How can you ensure you are not providing excessive input from the use of A.I. that is not complimenting in class instruction, but perhaps impeding its benefits. Additionally, if you buy a third party game, the non-player characters will have dialogue, but the dialogue may not be suitable to the outcomes you are trying to achieve through your lessons. If you instead, built your own game, the development of artificial intelligence models for a massive language game spanning multiple levels of proficiency would be immensely time consuming and for most may not be worthwhile to pursue from a cost versus benefit perspective. Furthermore, if you implement such a game in your class, how do you ensure that learners do not navigate to areas in the game that were not related to your lesson and that you did not want them to engage with until later. There may not be a way to lock down areas of the game. As a result, players may have free reign to pursue areas of the game you didn’t intend for them to work through. In some ways this could be good, as learners can learn at their own pace, but it could also work against what you are teaching in class, if they ignore what you would like reviewed, to instead go to a different area of the game.

According to Chang and Chang (2025) an implication from the use of video games in English Language Learning is that it could be over relied upon by a student or a teacher. When a tool, like a video game is overused, it can limit the teaching strategies and methods employed by teachers. Additionally, it can impact the depth of thought an instructor puts into their lessons. Additionally, some of the features of games can be both positive and negative. For example, rewards in games, while fun and motivating, could be a distraction and hinder internal motivation. Moreover, some video games may focus primarily on vocabulary skills which may not provide a pathway to achieving the instructor’s learning goals as there is not enough of a focus on achieving competencies that lead to language acquisition outcomes. According to Chang and Chang (2025) “educators should use gamified tools as supplements, choose customizable platforms, provide training, and integrate them alongside traditional teaching methods.” (p. 12)