Ji-eun's Story
A fictional account of a student finding and using Outer World.
"English is not fun anymore!"
Ji-eun is in her 8th grade at a middle school in Seoul, South Korea. She used to love studying English as a foreign language. It was so exciting to learn about the language and cultures outside Korea. Especially the language, English, was totally different from Hangul (Korean). Everything was new, such as the alphabet and its sound and pronunciation. There was no such thing pronounced as an alphabet “F” or “R” in Korean. Ji-eun loved the differences between those two different languages. However, English was no longer an interesting thing to learn for Ji-eun as she entered middle school.
"It's difficult!"
English classes in middle school were difficult. Ji-eun was required to learn how to read and understand long sentences that included myriads of new vocabulary and phrases, which she hadn’t seen before. Now, she has to memorize at least 100 words of English per day to follow the school’s curriculum. Moreover, grammar and sentence structures in English were so different from Hangul that Ji-eun had to put much effort into studying them. One of the things that made it even more difficult for Ji-eun to learn English was that there was almost no opportunity for her to use English outside of school. She couldn’t practice her English knowledge and skills in the real world. She questioned herself, “Why am I studying English when there is no chance for me to use it? I am sick of memorizing vocabulary that I won’t use, at least in the near future.”
"What is Outer World?"
One day, one of her friends Minjun introduced Ji-eun to a game called “Outer World.” He wanted to be a friend with Ji-eun in the game. Ji-eun downloaded the game to her tablet and started playing. First, she created an account and customized her character as a little girl wearing a purple T-shirt and white pants, just like her today’s outfit. During the tutorial, she got greatly interested in the game. She was able to have conversations in English with other characters (AI agents) in the game! Then, she started exploring the game world, which was much similar to the real world. She visited a school, restaurants, and grocery stores. Whenever she met AI agents, she could use her English knowledge and skills to talk with them. She felt she was traveling somewhere outside Korea, where people speak English as their first language.
"English is fun!"
While playing the game, Ji-eun received some fun missions. Upon completion, she got rewarded with items that could be used to decorate her character or its house. Daily suggested words and expressions were helpful for her to complete each mission. Ji-eun also became friends with Minjun in Outer World, and visited his character’s house. It looked awesome! She left a short message: "I love your character and your house!” Now, Ji-eun can use English outside the class. She can read, write, listen, and speak English while playing around in this real-world-based virtual world. She doesn’t have to memorize English anymore with zero fun. Ji-eun fell in love with English again.