[B-Greek] Immersive environments - mmorpg (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game)

Kevin Riley klriley at alphalink.com.au
Sun Aug 9 04:21:26 EDT 2009


The problem is that to be effective you need correct examples, or at least someone who can correct mistakes.  A conversation between learners will contain mistakes, and unless they are corrected they will be reinforced.  In real life, you learn in a situation where most of the people around you are fluent speakers, so you have those models of correct speech.  Even if no one actually corrects you, sooner or later you notice that everyone else is doing something different to you.  In a classroom, you have the teacher who can correct mistakes.  A problem that is encountered in many environments on the web is that enthusiastic learners set up an environment to interact and learn, but it fails after a while because they cannot find sufficient numbers of native speakers, or good second-language speakers, who can provide the examples and correct the mistakes.  I have also seen these ventures ruined by one or two people who insist on having their own 'standard' imposed on everyone else, leading to both native speakers and learners avoiding them.  While I would like to say that would not happen with learners of Koine Greek, the sometimes heated discussions of pronunciation schemes (among other things) on here makes me reluctant to make such a pronouncement.  The technical environment may prove much easier to manage than the human environment.

Kevin Riley

> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:b-greek-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org]
> 
> Quoting "Mike Noel" <mike at vnoel.com>:
> 
> >>> > Has anyone here ever thought or heard about using mmorpg (Massively
> >>> > multiplayer online role-playing game)
> >>> > platforms for simulating an immersive environment for language learning.
> >
> > This sounds like a GREAT idea.  Some others have been looking at
> > this it seems:
> >
> > http://ethiopia.cs.northwestern.edu/~yar665/website/Rankin_Gold_Gooch.pdf
> >
> > So what would it take to get something like this started?
> >
> 
> In some respects more and less than one might expect:-
> 
> 1) A host (a server and a website)
> 
> 2) IT people
> 
> 3) Ideas people
> 
> 4) Those with knowledge of Greek
> 
> The challenge would be to produce something which would interest
> people enough, this would only be possible with a number of long term
> voluntary contributors who build the worlds (this is assuming that
> there is not the funding to pay people to work on the project).
> 
> But maybe the question is what level people would find acceptable, an
> easier alternative like a forum where everyone uses koine Greek is
> something I could set up in a few minutes if there is a demand for such.
> 
> Regards
> John K
> 
> 
> 
> > _M_
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