Description Video Games Teach English
One of the biggest problems with our school system is not that students don't want to learn, but rather the fact that the content being taught is rarely truly interesting. This is also true for English lessons. Before you get to interesting topics like Shakespeare or Edgar Allan Poe, you have to slog through mundane stories about school children and their talking pets. It's understandable that enthusiasm is limited for many. It's obvious that children will only engage with something voluntarily if it is fun for them. And what better way to do this than with video games?
No matter if you used to get the import version of a brand-new game, downloaded the pirated version from the internet, or simply overlooked the language selection during installation out of excitement: like it or not, you had to deal with English. We can say from our own experience that we learned significantly more on our adventures with Gordon Freeman, the Master Chief, and Link than in overcrowded classrooms. And if you look at the level of English proficiency in Scandinavian countries, where films, games, and series are generally released in their original subtitled versions due to the market's limited size, the connection is hard to deny. And yes, we know that correlation is not the same as causation...
If you had a similar experience to ours, you can show this with our Teaching English T-shirt, which is also suitable for English teachers. After all, you're only criticizing the curriculum, not the people. Hate the game, not the player! ;)
