As an English as a Foreign Language teacher, I have been using RPGs in many of my EFL classes at National Chengchi University in Taipei, Taiwan, ROC, for the past few years. Currently, I have the good fortune to teach a Junior/Senior level course specifically in RPGs as well as being able to use the activity with my lower level conversation practice classes, my Freshman English courses, and even as a reviewing tool for my Literature & Film class.
Role Play is not knew to language classes, although RPGs are. Role playing has several beneficial language learning characteristics which Gillian Porter Ladousse has effectively described in her useful introduction to the topic, Role Play. Many of these characteristics are also present in tabletop RPGs. It should be noted that role play and RPG activities are not limited to language practice as language learning is also taking place during the games. For RPGs to be effective in this way, they should be part of what Ladousse calls that "category of language learning techniques sometimes referred to as low input - high output . . . . the teacher-centered presentation phase of the lesson is very short." Role-Playing activities offer opportunities for real use of the language. Although they are more often used in many English for Special Purposes courses, they can be used with general classes too at any level.
There can be two ways of looking at language work in RPGs and similar role plays: either the students manage with the language they already know or they practice with structures and functions that have been presented in an earlier part of the course or lesson. Either way, the students can only benefit from the experience. William H. Bryant used adventure/survival discussion games similar to RPGs in his French Conversation classes and found them to be very effective.
Paul Cardwell, CAR-PGA president, noted in his article "Role-Playing Games and the Gifted Students," that there are several language and non-language based learning skills developed directly when students become involved with RPGs. According to Cardwell, these include but are not limited to Following Directions, Vocabulary, Research, Independent/Self-Directed Study, Planning, Choice/Decision Making, Mental Exercise, Evaluation, Cooperation/Interaction, Creativity/Imagination, Leadership, Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, Predicting Consequences, Figural/Spatial Reasoning, Taking Other Points of View, Asking Questions, Ethics, Prioritizing, Interrelated Learning, and Continuity of Learning. Swink and Buchanan found that there is also some evidence to suggest that role-playing methods facilitate attitude change, increase self-concept, and produce behavioral change.
Along with developing language skills and other related skills as noted above, because RPGs are language-centered communication games, they have a definite positive effect on student socialization skills which are central to RPGs where much of the game is based upon gaining information from the GM and then interacting with one another to come up with a common interpretation so that the group of players can accomplish their goals. One of the players in one of the hobby groups that I run in Taipei noted that she wasn't so interested in whether the characters made it through the game in one piece or not as the fun she had just socializing with the other players during the game.
For students who create their own adventures, instead of relying upon published source material, the act of doing so helps then become better thinkers and writers. This is because a scenario requires internal logic, a balance that is the very condition of collective involvement. Sociologist Daniel Dayan characterized the standards for good RPG campaigns thus: "The fictional background or universe must be relatively convincing and may call for some amount of historical validity, but it is defined less in terms of historical realism than by the consistency of its imagined features." Similarly, many claim that the game offers an outlet for those with adventure fantasies of their own and teaches them about problem-solving, leadership, and survival.
Whether students are playing in scenarios created by their classmates or using pre-generated modules, RPGs have a strong curiosity appeal which Patricia Mugglestone called the one "primary motive relevant to every teaching-learning situation, whatever the status of the target language, whatever type of course is being followed, whatever the learner's nationality, age, and level of language proficiency, whether he is a volunteer or conscript learner." According to Mugglestone, "projects appeal to the curiosity motive if their content is interesting to the learner and if the learner is allowed to develop the project in his own way." This certainly describes the typical RPG activity.
Email Brian David Phillips at phillips@nccu.edu.tw.
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