Reznet

RezWorld's Navajo language game gives higher levels as one acquires greater skill, much the same as popular but less educational games like Grand Theft Auto.

A Cyber Solution for Lost Languages

By Andi Murphy

LAS CRUCES, N.M. — It's no secret that Native languages are disappearing, but researchers at Thornton Media Inc. might have a solution: RezWorld, an interactive video game that focuses on teaching students their Native language.

"I'm pretty sure it would help me," said Malcolm Yazzie, a sophomore at New Mexico State University here. Yazzie would like to take a Navajo language course, "to learn and to talk to my grandma and grandpa because they don't speak that much English."

RezWorld immerses students in a 3-D cyber reservation where students interact with and control digital characters. They advance through different levels of the game by mastering their Native language, similar to the popular games The Sims and Grand Theft Auto.

Same technology taught soldiers

The game uses Alelo Technology, the same technology used to teach U.S. soldiers the Iraqi language before they are deployed. Alelo has been tested on 25,000 students and has proved to be more effective and fun than other computer-visual language-learning tools, according to TMI's Web site.

Cherokee RezWorld is the first 12-level game to be produced by TMI. RezWorld can be made for any indigenous language. Body and hand gestures, environment and characters are all customizable for tribes that would like to spend up to $1 million to have the first RezWorld edition made in their language. That sum covers the cost of language specialists and linguists, including other specialists who would help direct and mold RezWorld characters to mimic the tribe's customs, culture and environment.

Yazzie plays video games about 25 hours a week and said he knows what it takes for a video game to be graphically sound, challenging and fun for it to be called "good." Although RezWorld could not compare with Halo 3, said Yazzie, he wouldn't mind playing it if a Navajo language course were to use it in its curriculum.

Most of the Navajo language he has learned has been from his family, he said. He tried Spanish when he was in high school but that didn't go well because learning it meant lectures and textbooks. "It was boring," he said.

Digital interactivity entices learners

But something digitally interactive like RezWorld would get him interested and it's more fun when learning with others, he said.

"Games are good, but those are all just supplemental materials," said Lorene Legah, a Navajo language instructor at Dine College in Window Rock, Ariz.. "I think the best way to teach a language is immersion."

When people learn a language, they don't just learn how to speak it; they learn the culture and the customs of the people who speak the language, Legah said. A more effective way to learn the Navajo language would be for students to talk to their parents, grandparents and friends in Navajo.

"Unfortunately, we have parents that don't know the language," Legah said.

In a situation where the students' parents do not speak their indigenous language, RezWorld might be more effective. "I think it would be OK," Legah said.

She is not too sure if RezWorld is the way to go in teaching Navajo. She's not sure if a game can capture culture and real-life situations in a cyber reservation. Legah, along with other Navajo language instructors and linguists, have been working together, since March, to make a Navajo edition of another language program, Rosetta Stone. They are busy with level one of the program that they hope will come out in summer 2009.

"We are still in the beginning," Legah said. "It takes a lot of work. ... We'll see what happens."

Andi Murphy, Navajo, is a student at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. A graduate of the Freedom Forum's 2007 American Indian Journalism Institute, Murphy interned as a reporter at The Daily Times in Farmington, N.M., and, last summer, at the Great Falls Tribune in Montana.