NCC in the Material Package

In a world where people’s well-being both inside and outside work is of growing concern, the NCC has focused on finding the learners multiple ways to find their own best and easiest way to learn and teach them different kind of strategies for learning. This kind of focus on different learning styles and strategies allows material packages such as this one to help find possibly a new learning strategy for the students. When the school helps its students to find their own path and offers courses such as this, they may grow into people who are much more open to try new things and build connections between various things that help them in life, such as a connection between video games and education. I have found that the current NCC supports my material package well and it has encouraged me to keep working on this project.

A pillar for the education is not just how things are taught but the environment of the learners. In the NCC it is said: ”Learning occurs in interaction between other students, teachers, experts, and communities in different environments.” (Finnish National Board of Education, 2016a:14) The time in school cannot be separated of the time in real life. Teaching is not just about focusing on what the

teacher explains of things in general, it needs to be tied in the lives of learners. The people surrounding them and their environment play a central part in their life for they provide the guidelines for the actions of everyone, not just of the learner.

This material package provides the learner with everything that this quotation says needs to happen in a learning process. As it is said, the surroundings should vary. When one thinks of the traditional surroundings of a teaching session, it is usually a classroom, filled with students and books, with a teacher or two. This package provides varying surroundings with videogames: every game has its very own environment and while playing the game, learners immerse with it. For example if one plays a fantasy role playing game, such as Skyrim, the game's environment is vastly different than in a game like Pac-Man. Then again, both of those environments, woods and cities, narrow neon corridors from a birds view, are very different from the traditional classroom setting.

Another very important aspect in the course is interaction. The course has an emphasis on oral skills, which are the very basis of interaction. Naturally, there are many types of interaction; both oral and written, sometimes even with sign language or other means, but building up oral skills might help the learners to be more confident when using a foreign language. Finns hear and see English on a daily basis from all kinds of media, mainly the television and the Internet, so they have gotten used to it.

This kind of exposure, however, does not necessarily make the output any easier. Let's Play videos provide the learners with output possibilities. The usual format of Let's Play is that the player comments on the game they play. Even though there is no straightly defined recipient for this commentary, there is still an output for the unknown audience seeing the video at some point. These people can be anyone the maker of the video wishes to share it with from just a friend to even the entire Internet.

When it comes to diversity of learning, one needs to remember that not everyone learns the same way. That is why one needs to have varying exercises. Even though the course is orally emphasized, it is important to provide also varying kinds of exercises. That is why there are some written exercises, like essays, made during the course. There is also a group presentation made during the course, which combines the use of both written and oral skills.

If the learning is supposed to occur in connection with the activity, situation, and culture in which it is happening that is covered as well. Everything is context related in this world, when it comes to communication and what else are languages than a means of communication. The situation and the

context of learning moves on multiple levels: first of all, the material package is designed to be used inside the Finnish school system, in particular in upper secondary school. The obligatory comprehensive school in Finland has its own NCC with its specifications on how many lessons of English per week or per course one should have, the goals of the courses, the CEFR level one should achieve during the school year, etc. This is reflected in the material package so that the level of language and the complexity of instructions is higher than in the comprehensive school, even the last levels of it. One cannot assume the same kind of material to be working in different levels of schooling. For example, an exercise of free writing can be quite hard for a pupil of let us say 13 years of age in comparison to a student, age 17. This is because, for instance, the vocabulary of the 13-year-old is not as developed as the 17-year-13-year-old's, due to the difference in exposure to the language, both in and outside of school.

Second, the context of learning moves in the levels of non-formality. Let's Play is not a widely used concept in teaching and therefore the level in which one usually operates with a foreign language is different than the one usually reserved for learning in school. This is how the mixing of language contexts creates a non-formal learning environment. In my opinion, this mixing of context in language use can be profitable to language learning. Not only does it combine different learning strategies, both explicit and implicit ones, but it also provides a source of motivation. Because the course is not an obligatory one, it is most likely that students who take the course are already motivated by the subject matter: Let's Plays. Therefore, the inner motivation or at least interest is lit already before the course.

In addition, Let's Plays work in a multiple set of cultural levels. The phenomenon is already global, for there are popular Let's Play video makers in very many countries. For example PewDiePie, one of the most popular of 2017's Let's Play video makers comes from Sweden, where as another popular content maker is Markiplier, who comes from the USA. Naturally, there are also content producers in Finland, like Laeppavika and Lakko. This makes the whole scene of Let's Play work in both international and national level. Naturally, there are always differences from one player to another on what sort of Let's Plays they wish to make but the idea stays mainly the same. However, in Finnish Let's Plays, although they may be mainly in Finnish, there it is still common to use some English terminology and expressions that come in the main language of the game that the players use, which in most of the games is English. However, some games do have translations in other languages, so, naturally, in those cases the use of English does not come from the context of the game. This kind of linguistic adaptation in gaming situations indicates both the assimilation of another language to a national gaming culture as well as participation in an international phenomenon for the language, in

most cases is English, a well-known lingua franca (see also Väkeväinen, 2015).

This mixture of gaming as an international phenomenon and national gaming culture can work as a pathway to more fluent and confident use of English. The use of English is more normal in the context of video games. Therefore, using a video game context, or in this case the context of Let's Plays made out of those video games, can be both motivating and educating, for the learners themselves get to be the experts of the chosen videogames for every video. This does not necessarily mean that the learners should know everything there is to know of that particular game but rather that they become experts in the experience of playing the game in question. That leads into authentic material produced in the videos for Let's Plays very rarely have a script of any sort. Authentic material from the learners gives both the teacher and the learner some insight on the level of their language skills.