Acquiring English Through The Game World of Warcraft

Abstract: This study investigates the learning experiences of three L2 learners of English in connection to the massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft (WoW). The participants, who all attend the course English A at upper secondary school at the time of the study, are frequent players of the game.By writing journals, the participants were asked to report on their learning experiences in direct connection to playing the game. In addition to this they were also interviewed in order to gain a further understanding of their linguistic development through the game.The research shows that the participants were very positive to the learning experiences attached to the game. They all had an abundance of examples to show for their linguistic skills improving significantly by playing the game. Especially the opportunity to engage in authentic dialogue with co-players in English reportedly greatly improved their linguistic skills. However, some doubts exist as to the teaching benefits of the game as most participants were negative to using the game in a setting of instructed learning.