Abstract Video games are notorious for their nefarious effects on teenagers since they were first introduced in society. Nevertheless, more and more attention is paid to their positive usage in many fields, including foreign language learning and other faculties of learning. Specifically to learn about the positive effect of video games on players’ English learning, the author had an interview with some foreign friends in Portugal which claims that video games used to help them a lot with their English learning. On account of the data from the interview and the findings of relevant studies, this paper is to illustrate the genres of video games and analyze their effects in the perspective of English learning. At last, based on Chinese conditions it presents some possible obstacles and feasible suggestions for the purpose of exploring the use of video games in language learning.61653

Key words: video games; foreign language learning; English learning; EFL

摘要电子游戏自产生以来便因其对青少年的不良影响而饱受诟病，然而其对包括外语习得及其他学习领域的积极作用被给予越来越多的关注。为了更好得认识电子游戏对玩家英语学习的积极作用，本文作者就这一主题采访了在葡萄牙的来自不同国家的国际友人玩家。结果表明，电子游戏曾大大帮助他们学习英语。本文根据采访数据，结合相关的研究成果，基于外语习得层面对电子游戏进行了分类，并分析了他们对英语学习的作用。最后鉴于国内现状，对利用电子游戏进行英语学习可能遇到的阻碍进行预想并提出可行方案。

毕业论文关键词：电子游戏；外语学习；英语学习；英语作为外语；

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. About the Interview 3

4. Genres and Values of Video Games for English Learning 3

4.1 Specific English learning video games 4

4.2 Pedagogical English video games 4

4.3 Other video games 5

5. Obstacles of and Solutions to Using Video Games for Foreign Language Learning 12

6. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

As a foreign language in China, English is widely learnt and used in many fields, but it is very disturbing that most Chinese can speak and use English badly even though they have been learning English in schools for almost ten years, including English majors who have also learn English for another four years in colleges. A quantity of time and energy spent but bad efficiency gained, Chinese EFL learners wonder about a better and efficient way of learning English. The public education system has been reluctant to bet on this teaching method due to ideological beliefs. Video games are often demonized as useless, time wasters and oftentimes distractive. Western countries, however, have been betting on education through video games and the results obtained were encouraging and video game developers have been releasing educational versions of their games to help children at school.

Video games in China have been confronted with some dismay, which is just like what happened to television during its infancy. People viewed them more as a virus carrier which are only for entertainment and full of violence or inappropriate content, than a necessity for entertainment, information taker, even knowledge transfer. What’s noticeable is that compared with TV, video games gain more popularity among people, especially the younger ones, resulting in both its attractive elements like vivid images as what TV has contained and most importantly the interactive characteristic what TV doesn’t have. In this way could video games be a much more acceptable approach to learn languages? Actually, the use of video games in education has been actively recommended by educational researchers. For instance, In Squire’s study in 2008, he found out that by then there had already been many projects, organizations and books emerged exploring tendency uses of game-based technologies in Learning.源:自/751-·论,文'网·www.751com.cn/ 电子游戏对英语学习的积极作用:http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_67505.html