Vanessa and James interview James Paul Gee who wrote a book about how good it is for kids to play computer games.
Welcome to the Learning English Podcasts produced by the Hellenic American Union.
In this broadcast, Vanessa is in the middle of a live show interviewing James Paul Gee. Listen to their conversation and answer the question that follows about the main idea.
Dialogue:
Vanessa: Hello and welcome to our show. James Paul Gee is with us today to tell us more about his book ‘Everything Bad is Good for You’. James, thanks for being here today.
James: My pleasure.
Vanessa: Your book’s main argument is that playing video games is actually good for kids. So, James, do video games make kids smarter? I gotta tell ya, I don’t buy it.
James: Well Vanessa, what are kids doing when they play these games?
Vanessa: They’re wasting their time if you ask me. Why do you think they’re doing something useful?
James: Don’t forget that computer games need a great deal of concentration, and ask the player to plan, create strategies and use tactics…
Vanessa: What are you driving at? Are you trying to tell me that computer games are actually beneficial for children?
James: In a nutshell. You see… these games offer a mental exercise that can benefit their overall development as children give them their undivided attention and try to solve difficult problems.
Vanessa: I see where you’re going, sort of like a ‘mental workout’?
James: Exactly.
Vanessa: Okay, but what are they learning?
James: Not as much as they could. But if educators got together with software developers to make simulations that take say Sim City, Age of Empires and Civilization,…
Vanessa: Sorry to butt in, those are all computer games, right?
James: Yeap…anyway, as I was saying, if they could take these games but use real information about what happened … and let people play alternate versions of history…
Vanessa: So they’d be learning as they play?
James: Absolutely… and not only that. What is our children’s working environment going to be like in the future? It’s sure to involve computers and rapid decisions!
Vanessa: So, we could use computer games to train our children
James: You’ve got it.
阅读更多内容，点这里请下载》》
