Performance Before Competence.
Good video games operate by a principle just the reverse of most schools: performance before competence (Cazden 1981). Players can perform before they are competent, supported by the design of the game, the “smart tools” the game offers, and often, too, the support of other, more advanced players (in multi-player games, in chat rooms, or standing there in the living room). This is how language acquisition works, though not always schools, which often demand that students gain competence through reading texts before they can perform in the domain they are learning.