I found the research study done on learning a foreign language through multimedia software very interesting. The study examined the experiences of two young children when learning Modern Standard Chinese in an unstructured home environment. The Language Market multimedia was used as a fun and interactive way of language acquisition where the children had complete autonomy to choose activities they wanted to do, with minimal supervision.

I agree that using games in classrooms is a great way of teaching children a foreign language, giving them an illusion of having fun game time, when they’re actually learning. However, I believe that the study would show different findings based simply on different environments (unstructured home environment vs. structured classroom environment). The findings also showed an unequal development in language skills e.g. listening, speaking, reading, writing, character recognition, functions etc. which only confirms my belief that as much as it’s important to make language learning fun, there needs to be some structure.

Shen H Z, Autumn 2003, Embracing technology : learning a foreign language in multimedia environments, Babel ; v.37 n.3 p.17-22,38; 

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