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Fnord666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

In a paper published in Profession [hcommons.org], the Modern Language Association's journal about modern languages and literatures, a Saint Louis University professor discusses how he uses video games to teach Italian, allowing his students to master two semesters worth of language acquisition through one intensive class for students new to the Italian language.

[...] Though [Simone] Bregni has used Final Fantasy, Trivial Pursuit, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Heavy Rain and Rise of the Tomb Raider in his classrooms, one of the most useful games to teach Italian is Assassin’s Creed II.

“In my Italian Renaissance literature course, for example, students explore Florence as it flourished under the Medici by playing Assassin’s Creed II,” Bregni says in the paper. “My 21st-century American students partake in the life of Ezio Auditore, a 20-something man from an affluent family, by wandering around a cultural and historical re-creation of 1476 Florence.”

[...] In a class called Intensive Italian for Gamers, all students made progress equal to two semesters of Italian over the course of a single fall semester. By the final, students were 3 to 5 points ahead of students in a traditional Italian course.

Source: https://www.slu.edu/news/2018/april/learning-italian-through-gaming.php [slu.edu]

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