mario lessons
Let's start with a casual game. Who did not play even a single Mario Bros. game?
I started playing games in the 90's, and the early games (which I played on Super Nintendo) were almost intuitive, with no reading necessary at all; so, when I was a little boy these games were very useful to develop my motor skills and my passion for playing games.
It was in the beggining of the 2000 decade that I received as a gift a Nintendo 64 with the game "Mario 64". In this game, in order to get all the golden stars of a level, there were a lot of signs scattered around giving the player some tips. It was the first time I realized that knowing English would help me in my real life (gaming life is was and is very real for me, don't argue). Back then, I didn't have access to Internet, so I kept a dictionary by my side and tried to identify the key words of the signs and looked them up (mainly nouns and adjectives, because I didn't know how to handle inflected verbs yet).
It was in the beggining of the 2000 decade that I received as a gift a Nintendo 64 with the game "Mario 64". In this game, in order to get all the golden stars of a level, there were a lot of signs scattered around giving the player some tips. It was the first time I realized that knowing English would help me in my real life (gaming life is was and is very real for me, don't argue). Back then, I didn't have access to Internet, so I kept a dictionary by my side and tried to identify the key words of the signs and looked them up (mainly nouns and adjectives, because I didn't know how to handle inflected verbs yet).
I remember I even underlined some words in the dictionary because I used to looked them up over and over again. I don't have that mini-dictionary anymore, but I remember of one specific word: "sky". Don't judge a kid's mind: I don't know why, but I kept forgetting its meaning every time, and there was a lot of golden stars that could only be caught while Mario was flying!
Of course, I kept playing other games too, but this one was crucial. The next year, when I started having English classes, I would pay attention to every single lesson, so I could learn new things to help me to unravel the mysteries of that language and, finally, be able to get all the golden stars!
MAIN POINT: To build interest, English had to have a function in my life, and what better function there was than to complete 100% of a game? It's fun and very rewarding! So, all I needed was to find a game I really enjoyed and the access to a dictionary. It was the beggining of a life of adventures in the fields of both English and gaming!