Study Shows Game-Based Learning as Effective as Intentional Instruction
New research shows learners can improve language listening skills through gameplay, without explicit instruction.
When Seth Wiener, associate professor of second language acquisition and Chinese studies, and his colleagues set out to study how people learn the sounds of a new language, they did not expect a video game about shooting aliens to rival established speech learning methods.
But that is exactly what they found.
Wiener, who directs the recently completed a multi-year study showing that learners can improve their ability to聽 perceive and categorize unfamiliar speech sounds by playing a specially designed video game. In fact, participants who trained with the game performed just as well as those who used more conventional explicit learning exercises.
鈥淎t the most basic level, people got better at listening,鈥� Wiener said. 鈥淭hey improved their ability to discriminate and learn words with tone, and they did so by playing a game we created.鈥�
The study focused on Mandarin Chinese, a language in which a speaker鈥檚 vocal pitch is essential for meaning and notoriously challenging for [adult] learners to successfully acquire. After receiving classroom instruction, students were divided into two groups for practice outside of class. One group completed training tasks that explicitly explained Mandarin sound differences and provided corrective feedback. The other group played a video game that required no speech, no written words and no direct instruction about language.
Instead, players navigated levels by responding to subtle sound differences embedded in the gameplay. The key design element was that the videogame鈥檚 sounds were created to mimic Mandarin speech.
鈥淲hat surprised us was how similar the gains were,鈥� Wiener said. 鈥淪tatistically, the two groups performed the same across every task.鈥�
The finding questions long-held assumptions in language instruction, particularly the idea that adults must be taught explicitly to master new sounds. While Wiener emphasizes that structured instruction remains valuable, the results suggest there may be another path forward.
The research builds on work by collaborator Lori Holt, whose has long explored incidental learning, the process by which people acquire skills without direct instruction. (MCS 2024), a postdoc at the University of Wisconsin, played a central role in designing the study and building the game, while Wiener helped connect the project to classroom learning and the broader literature on Mandarin and second language acquisition. Undergraduate researchers also contributed by testing and refining the game.
Together, the team blended psycholinguistics, neuroscience and game design into a single interdisciplinary project.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 really what made this possible,鈥� Wiener said. 鈥淚t taps into all the things this university does well.鈥�
Beyond Mandarin, the implications are broad. Wiener and his colleagues have already begun experimenting with similar approaches for Japanese, and he sees potential for adapting the method to other languages. The approach may also be especially useful for learners who struggle with explicit methods, including those who are neurodivergent or have learning difficulties.
The study speaks to a deeper idea in cognitive science: skills learned in one domain can transfer to another. Just as musical training can sharpen pitch perception in language, the game trains auditory perception in a way that carries over to real-world listening.
Remarkably, the game contains no Mandarin at all.
鈥淧eople got better at listening to Mandarin without engaging with Mandarin outside the classroom,鈥� Wiener said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the key contribution.鈥�
The team is now analyzing whether those listening gains might also translate to improved speaking ability. Preliminary results are promising, though that work has not yet been published.
For now, Wiener hopes instructors and program designers see the value of supplementing structured instruction with accessible, low-pressure tools. The game used in the study is free and available online, making it easy to integrate into existing curricula.
鈥淭his isn鈥檛 about replacing the classroom,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about giving learners more ways to succeed.鈥�
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the journal 鈥淟anguage Learning鈥� and seed grants from Dietrich College.