engleski

The Role of Video Games in Early English Language Learning

This paper is about a study conducted at a Croatian primary school among young learners of English as a foreign language, ages 7-11 (N=55). The main aim of the study was to find out if young learners in Croatia acquire English by playing video games, i.e. through out-of-school exposure. For this purpose it was necessary to determine words/expressions the participants acquire through different informal sources of English and, in line with the main aim, an emphasis was put on video games, the frequency of gaming and their popularity. Furthermore, the study looks into correlations between the participants’ amount of time spent gaming, gender and age. Words/expressions acquired outside of school were collected by means of tables filled out by the participants and the parent questionnaire was used to detect the learners’ frequency of gaming. The results of the study showed that the learners did acquire words/expressions through out-of-school exposure, especially gaming. The number of produced words/expressions (in total and from video games) increased with the school grade, as well as the number of popular video games reported by the learners. However, no significant relationship was found between the frequency of playing video games and the grade level. Also, no statistically significant gender-related differences in the time spent gaming were found.

video games, early English language learning, foreign language

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