wordcoach–doesitcoachwords-compleatlexicaltutor.doc

WORD COACH – DOES IT COACH WORDS? Tom Cobb Université du Québec à Montréal ABSTRACT This study reports on the motivation, design, development, and testing of a research informed video game for vocabulary learning, My Word Coach, played on a Nintendo DS or Wii and distributed commercially since late 2007. The learning effects of the game were tested over four months in 2008 with 50 age-appropriate English as a second language (ESL) students in a Montreal school. A battery of observational and empirical tests tracked experimental and quasi-control groups’ lexical development on the dimensions of meaning recognition, free production, and speed of access. Two months’ game use coincided with an average 10%-20% increase in recognition vocabulary size; 40-50% reduction in code-switching in oral productions; and 18%-36% increase in speed of lexical access. Increased fluency appears to be the most interesting outcome. Questions are raised about the importance of post-game follow up, and suggestions made for principled modification of the game’s learner model INTRODUCTION BACKGROUND Video games occupy more and more of the time and attention of school age learners, with an effect on learning that almost definitely exists but is presently unknown. Arguments in principle for the learning power of such games are many (Gee, 2003; Pensky, 2006), while empirical investigations are few. This paper describes the design and testing of a video game focused on the specific goal of vocabulary expansion. My Word Coach (Ubisoft, 2007) is a video game whose goal is to help either first-language (L1) or second-language (L2) learners of English grow their lexicons systematically by playing word games. As author of this investigation of the game’s learning effects, I had also been a linguistic consultant for its design and development, and first presented the game to the public at the Getting the Word Out symposium at the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference in 2007. The symp