Os jogos digitais como ferramenta para o aprendizado de língua inglesa.

Abstract

Video games have been part of the society since the 1980's and, nowadays, they have more and more complex stories in which the player needs to know how to move forward in the game and complete its challenges, that is why it is possible to say that games have become important tools for teaching a foreign language, on the case of this study English. The use of video games as an extension of the classroom activities as a tool to reinforce the subjects studied is becoming a common practice around the world. All the visual appealing, the catching stories, the adaptation to the learner’s level of language knowledge, transform the game to a useful instrument, besides that, it makes the learning process more informal, because the game comes in first place, then the learning comes through the act of playing. The player internalizes words, expressions, makes associations, and creates meaning for the story told in the games, usually shown in English. This way, our objective is to show, through a compilation of data, the reasons why video games work as a tool that, if used in the right way, it could upgrade the student’s knowledge in English. Besides that, we are going to present some language learning acquisition theories, especially the Second Language Acquisition Theory one, because it gives us the theoretical base for this practice. It is going to presented also an experience report using as a base students from 9 to 10 years old, that play Our Discovery Island game which is part of the Our Discovery Island books from Pearson publisher, that are used at Centro de Línguas e Culturas UNISC, on which we noticed a better vocabulary learning, since the students have more contact with the language in an informal way, in other words, outside the classroom, which provides pleasure at the same time it creates meanings through images and words. These games provide huge possibilities, they just need to be better explored and analyzed for their educational potential in order to become tools that help on teaching English as a foreign language.