Playing World of Warcraft as extramural CLIL

This paper argues that playing World of Warcraft (WoW) is a form of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) that we refer to as extramural CLIL. We base our argument on findings from three studies. The first (Sylven, 2004/2010) is about CLIL and non-CLIL students at upper secondary school level (N=363, 99 CLIL and 264 non-CLIL students) and aims to investigate what effect, if any, CLIL has on the incidental acquisition of vocabulary. The second (Sundqvist, 2009) is about extramural English and aims to examine its potential impact on learners’ (N=80; 9th grade) oral proficiency and vocabulary. Extramural English is broadly defined as any type of contact that learners have with English outside (Lat. extra) the walls (Lat. mural) of the classroom. The third study (Sundqvist & Sylven, forthcoming) focuses on young learners (N=102, 5th grade) and their extramural English habits and aims to see whether there is a relationship between what the learners do in English in their spare time and their learning outcomes in school, as measured by the national test of English and a written vocabulary test. A pattern regarding gaming and learning outcomes emerged from the three studies, making it possible to claim that playing WoW is a form of extramural CLIL. WoW supplies an authentic environment for learning where players can practice, develop, and test their interactive skills. Thus, it is an extramural and informal arena for an immersive L2 experience and as such constitutes an emerging learner context. Players (learners) focus on content and meaning in order to make progress in the game and acquire language while doing so. Moreover, we hypothesize that not only WoW but all similar massively multiplayer online role-playing games help learners automatize L2 use, in particular since language is an important and integral part of such games.