Digital Play

By kylemawer 　http://www.digitalplay.info/blog/2009/11/13/dictionary-work-with-online-point-and-click-game-blue-beanie/

Level: Pre-intermediate

Topic: Doing a crossword/ Using a dictionary.

Focus: Vocabulary in an online game walkthrough.

Time: 1 hour/ 1.5 hours

Preparation: Download a copy of the walkthrough for yourself and a copy of the crossword and crossword clues for each pair of learners.

Game: Blue Beanie A young ghost has his blue beanie hat stolen by a big bird and has to set off on an adventure to get it back.

Opening screenshot from Blue Beanie

This activity is designed for dictionary work and focuses on vocabulary items found within the Blue Beanie game walkthrough.  Decide if you wish your learners to use printed dictionaries in the classroom to complete the crosswords or use online dictionaries in the computer room to complete the crossword.  Either choice means that a valuable language learner skill is being practiced.  If you choose to use online dictionaries it may be a good idea to chat with your learners and find out what they know about online dictionaries.  You may learn something yourself and also acquire a list of possible online dictionary web addresses that you can use and your learners are already familiar with.

Pre gaming activity

Explain to the class that they are going to play a game.  If you have a screenshot of the game show them what the game looks like and ask them what they think  the game is about and what they will have to do.  Tell them that there are a lot of difficult words in the game so before they play they are going to do some dictionary work to complete a crossword.  Show them a copy of a crossword and ask the class how to do a crossword.  Hand out a copy of the  crossword and crossword clues to each pair of learners.  One learner is responsible for reading the clues and writing the answers and the other learner is responsible for looking the word up in a dictionary (online in a computer room or in a printed copy in the classroom).  The learners complete the crossword.

Gaming activity

Direct your learners to the game and tell them they are going to play the game and check their answers to the crossword.  They will have to listen to you to complete the game.  You can then use a walkthrough in two different ways.

1  Using the copy of the walkthrough you printed off for yourself, dictate to your learners how to complete the game.  They listen and play the game.   If a learner has any language difficulties that were covered by the crossword then refer them to that.

2 Using an online walkthrough your learners can open two internet explorer windows.  One to play the game on and the other to read the walkthrough from.   Learners play the game and use the crossword and clues as a referrence to any of the vocabulary they have difficulty with.

Learners need to understand the vocabulary items in the crossword in order to play the game.  This is because in the game you have to click on the right vocabulary items in order to successfully complete the game.  Playing the game not only tests their understanding of the vocabulary items but seeing the objects also helps them to remember the vocabulary.

Homework

You could ask your learners to find a short point and click game and write their own crossword using an online crossword generator.  Rather than encourage endless hours of game playing which learners can tell their parents “my English teacher told me to do it!”, why not have a list of short games from which your learners can choose?  A list of games providing links to the games and their walkthroughs can be found here.