Digital Play

By kylemawer 　http://www.digitalplay.info/blog/2011/01/14/desert-island-misc/

Level: Pre – intermediate

Language: Vocabulary – action verb + noun

Skills Focus: Dictionary work / Speaking

Location: Connected Classroom

Game: Dream Machine

Nice little one screen game activity.

Preparation

Play the game and familiarise yourself with how to complete it using the Dream machine walkthrough.

Pre-play task

1. Dictate the following text in chunks using as natural speech as possible:

You go to sleep one night / and dream you are on a / small desert island. / You are very hungry / and you imagine / what you need / to catch and cook a fish. / As soon as you imagine / each of the things / they appear on the island.  / What things / do you think of?

Learners may ask you to repeat what you say and slow down.  It’s good to repeat (the chunks) using natural speech but not slowly.

2. Learners should compare what they have written with others, discuss any differences and make corrections if possible.  They can then ask you for clarification on any doubts they may have OR you can show them a copy of the original text for them to compare with what they have written.

3. Show the game to the class and elicit a name for the character.  Then brainstorm all the objects that they can see (rocks, palm trees, fishing rod, fire (place??), (fire)wood, etc).  Learners could use dictionaries at this stage before adding any new words to their list.

4. Then ask learners what they think the character should do first?  If their suggestion works tell them to to write down ’1′ in their notebooks and cooperatively decide on the sentence for everyone to write down.

e.g. Pedro picks up the fishing rod.

Essentially the class is writing the game walkthrough.

5. Once the first few sentences or so have been written down tell learners to continue in pairs.

NOTE - the annotation in the game offers an abridged ‘pick up fishing rod’ so be sure to elicit the definite / indefinite articles.

6. Pairs then compare their walkthrough with another group and expand on their own walkthrough by incorporating and copying any sentences another group has written that they think are valid.

Play Task

1. Learners read out the walkthrough which now becomes a dictation on how to proceed in the game.

2. If any sentences produced do not produce an effect in the game encourage learners to improvise orally.  You can listen and encourage self correction.

3. Any improvised sentences that produce an effect in the game that moves the game towards the end should be written down by learners.

4. When the character finds the map inside the fish (after he has eaten it) ask learners to theorise about what the map is for, what each of the parts of the map represent and finally to guide you to what you should do (dig) and where

There’s a nice little end sequence to the island dream.

Post Play activity

• Using their walkthrough learners go home and play the game and continue the walkthrough with the next scene (which, incidentally, is quite short and not as good as the first – it’s the demo version).
• Learners change the walkthrough into a narrative starting:

“One day last week I had a strange dream . . . “