British Council-Gaming

Transcript of the podcast

Speaker 1

I’ve always been a fan of computer games. I used to play Solitaire or Minesweeper at my desk when I thought I could get away with it but recently that’s become a thing of the past. My company has just introduced a gaming area in the office. I’ve found it really helps. Before I used to play when I was frustrated or I couldn’t get numbers to balance but I always felt a bit guilty that I might get caught. Now, I just go to the gaming area and play a few games – I find it really helps release tension and I’m much more focused when I get back to work. It’s really helped to increase employee morale in my company and personally helps me reduce stress. The bosses have realised how much this has changed our working productivity and now if someone’s getting all stressed out, they say “Why don’t you go and play a few games?” – they encourage it

Speaker 2

I work with kids and teenagers who I see after a long day at school. It can be really difficult at times getting them to focus on grammar or a reading. We have a computer room which the kids really love and you can practise grammar activities or look up information on the internet. I started thinking of ways to use the computer room more effectively. Most of my students are into games so video games seemed right and I started looking into ways to use them. I found lots of instructions called walk-throughs which are instructions explaining how to play the games. These walk-throughs are written by gamers for other gamers to use and they can be 5 pages long. Now my students are really into long readings – they can’t get enough of them

Speaker 3

I was recently sent abroad on a peacekeeping mission. Before I went, I had to spend 100 hours playing video games. In the past we used to have to go to classes before embarking on a mission to learn some of the local language. They used to teach us about important body language but now we have this virtual reality game that teaches you and even has simulation exercises of what we’ll be doing when we get there. This is loads better than the classes were, it’s like learning without realising you’re picking up new stuff. You just play and at the end you know how to communicate to someone in another language – it’s great

Answers