I'll take it

welcome welcome

to the effortless English podcast.

Today's title, Lessons from Video Games.

Educators can learn a lot from video games.

Good video games are, in fact,

highly addictive learning experiences.

The novice player is guided through ever increasing levels of difficulty and challenge.

This process is full of failures, i.e. death, loss, etc.

And yet, most gamers love the experience.

A failure in a video game is seen as a learning experience and a challenge.

Contrast this to the typical English class.

How many schools treat failures as positive and fun learning experiences and challenges.

And thus, how many students have this viewpoint?

In school, failure is a terrible, humiliating, and shameful thing.

What's more, students are rarely given the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.

The worst example of this I ever encountered was at Tomassat University.

Instructors were not allowed to review the answers to a test after it had been graded.

We could not go through the test and help the students

understand the correct answers. The test was not a learning tool. It was a

weapon for degrading students and boosting the authority of the university and teachers.

Another important aspect of video game learning is that learning occurs in sub-domains.

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