I just recently got back from Techday, an event that is hosted by the local Osaka JALT.  What seemed very interesting to me was the use of more and more video games in learning contexts.  There was a presentation on a flash game that was being re-written to be more friendly to learners of English.  It seemed like a great idea because they can practice listening to the dialog and practice their comprehension.  The project hadn't been completed yet, but the finished product was to include the ability to even go back and re-listen to parts of the dialog to comprehend it more.

Video games, especially adventure games like the one that was presented, require the player to perform specific tasks.  This makes an adventure game become one giant task based lesson.  Granted these lessons are a bit unusual and some may never happen in real life, but a lot of the elements are the same.  I would dare to say that these games are more real than a basic pairwork exercise in class.

For some time, I've been downloading and playing a few Japanese adventure games to practice my Japanese.  I would say this exercise is not for beginners, but has been a lot of fun to work my way through the games and puzzle through the dialog.  I found that hidden object games were a particular interesting because a lot of the time you were tasked with finding hidden objects in the scene and the word for them was at the bottom, so you had to match the word with the object.  Although at times this seems a bit unnatural, it could be a lot of fun.

The place where I got a lot of these games was BigfishGames.com (affliate link).  The best part of the deal is that you can play the first hour for free, so you can try out a game, and if you really like it you can play the rest for a fairly small fee.  These games are not specifically designed for language learning students, but they are still pretty useful.

So, I have a question for everyone out there.  Have you played video games to learn a language?  What do you think of the experience?  For the brave, I have a challenge for you.  English teachers, download a game that is not in English.  They have games available in Japanese, Spanish, French, and German.  Try it out and tell me if you feel it taught you anything.  English students, download an English title from the website and tell me if it was helpful.  Remember you can play the first hour free, so it only costs a little bit of time.  I'd be interested to hear your opinions.

Or do you have any other sources of good games?  Do you think games should be specifically designed for language learners, or is it best to use 'real' games like these?  I'd love to hear your opinions on it all.  Please comment below.