Game Plan

A Detective Themed Game

By kylemawer  |  2012/02/03 03:47 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Language Level: Advanced

Skills Focus: Reading

Location: Computer room (multiple computers)

Game: Rizzoli and Isles

If I ever ask teachers if there’s a game that they would want to use in class that’s based on a specific theme the most common answer is crime or a detective based game – so here’s one right here.  There’s even a nice little tutorial at the beginning which your learners can read.  It tells you how to play the game.  Here’s the first one:


 It’s basically a point and click game – you point your mouse on various parts of the screen and click to see if you get some information in your role as a detective.

Note it is a homicide you are investigating so be aware there are some scenes that are inappropriate for a younger audience.  For instance, you have to view the scene of the crime and so you not only get to see the murder victim but you have to collect evidence from the body.  However, if you’d like to judge this game for yourself and see the content of the game you can always take a look at the video walkthrough that is at the bottom of this post.

The screen shots here are all taken from the tutorial at the beginning of the game.  This will not only give you an idea of the level of language in the game but will also give you an idea of what to expect in the game.  Of course, these will all be read by your learners too.

To orientate learners towards the game I took some of the language items from the tutorial and got them to do a little bit of dictionary detective work and find out their meanings.  Basically, it was way to preteaching some of the game’s vocabulary, orientate learners towards the language task (we switched to an online dictionary) and introduce the game itself via the tutorial.

Here’s the vocabulary we did before the game:

There’s a bit of jumping about in this game.  As you solve clues and progress, different locations become available to you.  You start at the crime scene where you collect evidence and talk to the police officers on the crime scene and the building supervisor who’s office is next door.  I say talk but what you in fact do is read what they say, choose from a short list what you say and see where that takes you in the conversation.  A little simple but, hey!  It is reading practice.

While you do move around a few different locations you do have to keep going back to your office.  Your office is not only the place where you collect all your evidence, arrange it and make connections but there’s also the forensic department which you have to go and talk to.

Your notice board (pictured above) is a click away from your desk and you drag and drop the evidence you collect onto it and, as the game progresses, continue to move them around so that they begin to join up.  This in turn gives you more ideas on where to look and impresses your boss so that they can direct you to more locations and more clues.

I have to admit having played the game myself with a class this moving clues around the notice board can prove a little tiresome and it’s a good idea to have the video walkthrough on hand to give learners a little bit of extra help.  Either go and have a look yourself and call out what they need to do next and invite them to go up and have a look at it.  I generally don’t let them have too easy an access to the walkthrough (like on their computer in a different window) as they tend to overuse it.

I think I’ve already mentioned the desk, haven’t I? I also mentioned the bulletin board but reading back on this blog post I’ve called it a notice board.  I made this mistake in class and it did create a little bit of confusion but strangely enough generated some quite spontaneous and natural English.  Basically I got told off by my students, got involved in a semantical arguement which even if I didn’t really win I felt that by getting so much language out of them was a victory in itself.

Notice how ‘bulletin board’ is on my preteach vocabulary list (above).  Yep!  I learnt my lesson and by the time I got round to using the game with another class I was calling it ‘the bulletin board’.  However, I did feel that by skipping over calling it a ‘notice board’ we were missing out so subsequently I threw it back in and, you’ll be glad to hear, feel much better.  I have, rather unfortunately, never had that same level of “discussion” as I had the first time.  I feel rather nostalgic about it now.

Anyway, I’m waffling.  Either play the game yourself or watch the video walkthrough.  Here’s the link to watch it:

Rizzoli and Isles

 

 

 

 

 

An Interactive Story

By kylemawer  |  2012/01/20 10:29 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Intermediate+

Location: Connected Classroom

Language Focus: 3rd Conditional

Skills Focus: Reading, Speaking

Game: An Interactive Story

Can you help the girl get home through the woods before it gets dark?

This is a nice little game presented as a moving story book.  That is, it looks like a book upon which the drawings of the characters move.  ok, they move in a limited way but it’s got text for reading practice and it looks kind of cute.  At the beginning of the game you get a bit of the background story and some information on what you have to do.  A few pages into the story the game starts in earnest as the girl meets a strange creature and has to decide how to react.  This is where you the reader get to choose what the character does and in effect dictate the course of the story.  I did this on an interactive whiteboard allowing time on each page for my learners to read the story, discuss any difficult language elements, answer some questions (sort of spontaneous comprehension questions) and finally talk about and reach a consensus on what course of action to take in the story.

Preparation

I played the game first and prepared a set of questions to ask my learners.  Having played the game I realised that by asking certain questions I could ‘guide’ my class to make the choices that would bring out the more interesting elements of the story (it was also the longest version).  Here are those questions:

  • What time of year does the story take place?
  • Where was she going?
  • What was the matter with the strange creature?
  • What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t stopped to help?
  • Why do you think it’s a bad idea to stop and play in the park?
  • What would have happened if you had stopped?
  • What does the old man drop?
  • What reward does he give her for returning his wallet?
  • What would have happened if she’s kept it?
  • What does the girl get if she arrives late?
  • What does the girl get when she arrives just in time?
  • What does the girl do after dinner?

Pre-play

  1. I made a copy of the questions above so that there would be a copy for each pair of my learners.
  2. Before I gave them a copy I showed them the screenshot above from the game and got them to predict the story.
  3. After a bit I told them they were all good guesses but these questions may help them guess better.
  4. I handed them the questions, gave them a little time to read and talk about them before getting feedback.

Play

  1. I started the game telling my learners to raise their hand if we reached a point in the story where they could make a guess at the answer to one of the questions.
  2. Difficult language was dealt with reactively and I threw in a few extra questions as they occurred to me even asking questions such as how old did they think she was, what kind of person she was and what her parents were like.
  3. As the choices came up I set my learners in pairs to briefly discuss the choices, answer a question, feedback to the class and then vote on a course of action and explain why.
  4. We repeated the above steps until the story reached its conclusion.

Post Play

Learners told their partner:
  • a recapped version of the story
  • what they thought of the story
  • what they would personally done at each moment

Extra

In class they wrote down the answers to the questions.  Then, they worked with a partner to start writing their own version of a choose your own adventure based on ‘An interactive story’.  For homework they finished this and in the next class swapped their stories with others in the class.  Then, in new pairs they read each story to their new partner and read the story.  I encouraged them to ask questions and discuss the story in much the same way as we’d approached ‘An interactive story’ in the previous class.  They had fun and there were quite a few interesting, funny and imaginative stories created.

 

Competition Winner! Christmas Escape Game

By grahamstanley  |  2011/12/23 19:40 Posted in Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Congratulations to Nada Purtic, the winner of the Digital Play Christmas competition!

Here, as the last Digital Play blog post of the year, is Nada’s idea for the December Escape Game. Well done Nada! A copy of Digital Play (the book) is on the way to you.

December Escape Game Lesson Plan

Level: Beginners
Language: body parts, furniture, prepositions of place
Function: asking questions (to be)
Skills: speaking
Location: the connected classroom
Game: December Escape Game

Pre-play
Revise vocabulary by labelling body parts and furniture (December Escape Game YLE Worksheet).

Play
Tell your students that Santa has to deliver the presents but has been locked in the room. On top of that, he is missing his clothes. They are to help him find his clothes, find the key and escape the room. There are some things hidden in the room and students’ task is to guide the teacher where to click by asking:  ‘’Is there something behind/under/in… ‘’ .  Find all the missing pieces and help Santa out.

Post Play
Write a letter to Santa.

Thanks for this great idea, Nada, and thanks to all of our readers! Wishing you Seasons Greetings and looking forward to sharing more digital play with you all in 2012!

Escape From Christmas

By kylemawer  |  2011/12/16 04:34 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Pre-Intermediate

Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Speaking

Language focus: Prepositions of place, vocabulary in a house, imperatives (look, go, pick up etc)

Game: Escape Pear Room

The premise is that you get a little bit too drunk each Christmas and the family have decided they’ve had enough and locked you in the house.  It’s up to you to figure out how to escape.

Preparation

You can watch the Escape Pear Room video walkthroughs to familiarise yourself with the game.  This will help you while you are monitoring the activity to predict ahead, input language and guide learners if they get stuck.

Preplay

  1. Tell learners they are going to see 4rooms and they will have 25 seconds each to write down any words associated with Christmas that they can see.
  2. Open the game and move through the four rooms allowing 25 seconds on each for learners to write down the words.
  3. Feedback in open class making sure all learners know the meaning of the words they have written down.
  4. Go through the 4 rooms again and ask learners to describe where any of the difficult words are or any objects that they don’t know the name of in English.
  5. Explain a little about the game and say here’s the start and show some of the video walkthrough.  Show enough so that learners see a few of the puzzles being solved.
  6. Elicit how you play the game and what you do at the start.

Play

  1. In a computer room gather learners round a single central computer and open the video walkthrough.  It may be a good idea to open one of the videos on one internet explorer and the other video walkthrough on another.
  2. Tell learners that they can play the game in pairs and if they get stuck they can come to the video, watch a little bit and go back to their partner and tell them how to play a bit of it.
  3. Put learners in pairs and get them on the game. Tell one of the pair that for 5 minutes they are the gamer.  The other is the watcher and they go back and forth to the video walkthrough.
  4. Start the activity.  Monitor to ensure learners are using English and encourage them to use the words from the preplay activity.
  5. Swap gamer and watcher roles after 5 minutes.

Post Play

  1.  Learners write directions to  the end of the video.
  2. Learners record vocabulary items from the game and make a Escape Pear Room dictionary.
  3. Learners write a Dear santa note explaining the story and wishing to escape.

 

 

Building a sustainable city with Enercities

By grahamstanley  |  2011/11/18 09:30 Posted in Game Plan, Uncategorized  |  Comments (0)

Level: Intermediate+

Location: Computer room, class set of laptops (or game play for homework)

Skills Focus: Reading, Speaking

Game: http://www.enercities.eu

Enercities is a computer simulation game which lets you build your own city. It is suitable for  intermediate and above students and worth playing for the vocabulary of cities and discussion possibilities. Topics that are relevant include: Cities, Politics, Money, Renewable energy, Global warming, etc.

The aim of the game is to build a sustainable city with a population of 200. It’s probably best played in a computer room or with a class set of laptops. Alternatively, you can introduce the game to the students and ask them to play at home.

There is quite a lot of reading in the game, so I recommend looking at the instructions how to play with the students, letting them play and then doing a post-game follow-up discussion about their results and the best strategies for playing the game.

Here’s a class handout (PDF): Digital_Play_Enercities

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tanooky Tracks – A Gaming Circuit

By kylemawer  |  2011/11/11 03:13 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Upper Intermediate

Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Reading

Game: Tanooky Tracks

A Tanooky is a playful but mischievous spirit that likes to possess objects that most resemble its unique personality the most.  In this game you have to find and collect the objects associated with each of the 12 Tanookies in order to find them.  Why?  Because they are getting up to too much mischief.  If you can find them you are helping the occupants of the house, who are being terrorised by the Tanooky presence in their home, get rid of them (see left).

Luckily in the game there is a nice little hint book (see below) that tells you about each Tanooky and points you in the right direction as well as clues as to what objects to look for.   You can see where to click to read the hint book at the bottom of the house on the left.  You can click on this at any point while you are playing the game.  The clues and hints on each Tanooky consists of a riddle and some visual puzzles to mix it up a little.  If you look at the back of this book there are even more hints in case you are really stuck.

The nice thing about this game is that not only is it a visually attractive game with written text to support it but you can also choose to start with which ever Tanooky you like (of course, your learners don’t get to choose the order – you do!). That is, you can deal with them in any particular order.  I like this because sometimes when you have lots of learners playing the same game they can cheat by asking for / giving help using their own native language.  Because this game allows the teacher to dictate the order in which they take down each Tanooky.  Groups of learners will generally be playing the game at a different point.

The teacher can use a walkthrough as they monitor to ask learners guiding questions and help them solve the trickier riddles in the hint book.  Digital Play provides you here with links to the game, the walkthrough and a worksheet.  The latter is for the  learners which gives both extra help (if they need it) on solving the riddles and sets the order for each group to play the game.

Here’s the lesson plan:

Preparation

Print off a copy of the walkthrough and worksheet.  Cut the worksheet cards out (there’s a double copy in case groups overlap and need to look for the same Tanooky).

 

Pre-Play

  1. Hangman ‘Tanooky’.  Ask them what this means.  They won’t know so read them the explanation from the first line of this blog.  Tell them a bit about the game too if you like.
  2. Divide the class into 3, 4, 6 0r 12 groups depending on how you will organise them on the computers.  Deal the cut up worksheet equally amongst the groups.  Tell the groups to read the pieces of paper and make notes in their notebooks.  Their notes should include the name of the the spirit and any answers they might like to guess at.
  3. Collect back all the cut up worksheet cards.
  4. Go to the computer room.  Learners take their notes with them.

Play

  1. Learners find the game online and play the tutorial.
  2. They then take one of the worksheet cards and find that Tanooky spirit in the game.
  3. When they have solved that worksheet card they can get a different worksheet card.
  4. When one group has found all the tanooky spirits stop the game.

Post Play

  1. If learners didn’t finish the game they can complete it at home.  The game, walkthrough and worksheet can all be found here.
  2. They can look at the house in the game and invent their own tanooky spirit.  They describe it and explain what objects it’s connected to, how to find it and write a riddle.

If you can think of any other spin off activities you could do with this game then please feel free to tell us all about it in comments.

 

 

Reward or Punishment: Gamification with Class Dojo

By grahamstanley  |  2011/11/04 10:33 Posted in Game Buzz, Game Plan  |  Comments (2)

Class Dojo (http://www.classdojo.com) is a realtime behaviour management system for teachers who have an internet-enabled computer and a projector (connected classroom)or IWB.

You start by creating an account and setting up a class by typing in the names of your students. Avatars for each student are automatically generated during this process.

In class, you select a student and award a positive point for behaviour such as creativity, hard work, presentation, etc.

You can also award negative points for bad behaviour, when a student doesn’t bring homework or if he/she arrives late, etc.

Think of it like a digital star chart with added extras. The points can be awarded individually or, by selecting all students, you can give everyone a point. On the board, you can show only the positive or only the negative points the students get.

You can also undo if you make a mistake or change your mind, and it’s possible to reset all points to zero too. So far so good, but what makes Class Dojo really interesting is that once the class has ended, the programme displays a pie chart with the results of all student behaviour.

If you use Class Dojo every class, then you can select periods of time (days of the week, terms, etc) to display records of. You can also choose individual students and display their progress.

These are report cards that you can print off (on paper or PDF) for your own records or to give to the students or parents. You can also add and change the behaviour categories when you select ‘edit class’. This way you can tailor make the programme to suit the behaviour you want to reward or stop in your own class.

All in all, Class Dojo looks like it is a great way of gamifying the behaviour of your class and could work well for many teachers. A great find! Please let us know here if you find it useful.

Halloween Horror – Pirates of The Undead Sea

By kylemawer  |  2011/10/28 03:14 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Upper Intermediate

Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Listening

Game: Pirates of the undead sea

This game is not as gory and bloody as it gets by a long stretch but it is just about as far as we go here at Digital Play.  The story is of a zombie pirate who is trying to solve the mystery of how he ended up being a zombie and how he can get back to being a pirate.  Nice thing about this game is that there is lots of in-game text that builds the characters and moves the plot/ game forward.

It’s worth telling the class that it is important to read what the characters in the game say because they provide clues that will help them to not only solve the mystery but also play the game.

Preparation.

Download a copy of the Pirates of The Undead Sea walkthrough. Or alternatively use the Video Walkthrough to be a bit more spontaneous with your dictation.  You’ll need one of these in the computer room to run your dictation off.

Pre-play

  1. Explain that they are going to play a fun online game but that it is very important to pay attention to all the details.
  2. “It’s very important to pay attention in this game.  What the characters say in the game will help you solve the mystery.  In fact, it is so important that they pay attention to everything that even the title of the game is important.  Now watch and listen carefully.”
  3. In a connected classroom get learners attention and open the game for the whole class to see. The sequence it the title page of the game shows a pirate’s ship going backwards making the reverse ‘peep’, ‘peep’ sound that lorries can make when reversing.
  4. Ask learners about what they saw and heard and what conclusions they can make from this.

Play

  1. Take learners to the computer room and get them onto the game.  As they are finding the game tell them that they have to get the pirate’s boots on first.  This gives them a task to do from the beginning and allows you time to make sure everyone gets into the game.  If some are faster than others ask them to tell the class how they did it.
  2. Start the dictation as soon as possible even if it is confirming what some people have done.  this let’s the ones behind catch up.
  3. Try and ask as many questions about the game as possible, such as “What can you see?”, “What have you done?”, “What do you think you need to do now?”, “Where are you?”, “Can you describe the object using English?” etc
  4. Also encourage learners to ask both you and classmates questions about the game, especially “What do you call this (description?”, “What do I do next?”, “How do I do that?”
  5. Use the walkthrough to guide your learners through the game.
  6. Continue the activity until you see fit.  If there is not enough time to finish it in class time set it for homework.

Post Play

  1. Learners complete the game at home using the written walkthrough if they have to.  There is an online walkthough that they can use.
  2. Next class learners who completed the game answer questions from those who didn’t e.g. “what happened?” etc
  3. Learners produce a description of the story and what happened.
It’s interesting to note that if you set tasks within the game for them ahead of time and encourage them to ask questions they become more dependent on you the teacher.  They see your role as key in providing guidance.  They may in fact be learning a form of dependence on listening to the information that you give them.  In terms of listening and communication skills this is great!

 

Meet Moshi Monsters – the Primary Class Virtual Pets

By grahamstanley  |  2011/10/16 12:21 Posted in Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Moshi Monsters is a virtual pet game and popular safe social network for young kids similar to Club Penguin. The game lets a child adopt a Moshi pet, which they have to look after, feed and play games with.

Similar in concept to a Tamagotchi, but on the Web, it can be used in the young learner language classroom successfully, but the teacher has to be careful because not everything in the game lends itself to language learning or practice. When I started using the site I also found that Moshi Monsters quickly became the only thing my 9-10 year-olds would ask for, so I decided to limit our use to ten minutes and during a specific section of the class (just after the break).

Moshi Monsters works well in the Primary language class, especially if you have a connected classroom (i.e. a computer with Internet and a projector) and is best used if it forms a regular part of the class routine.

You can set up the account with the class, choose from one of four monsters and give the creature a name – all of this works very well when done with the class as it helps create a sense of ownership and it’s a great way to promote a spoken discussion.

 

Just like the Tamagotchi, your Moshi monster needs regular attention or the mood will turn sour (as in the picture above – now the class is over, nobody is looking after poor Panchito!) and so be warned. When I first started using the site, I only logged in during classtime and this meant our mosnter was always sad or grumpy, which affected the mood of the class, and meant that it was difficult to increase his level. I fixed this by giving the password to the learners, so they were able to look after the monster during the week. This went well for a while until most of the learners ended up creating their own Moshi monster.

The Moshi monsters world (left) is full of interesting places to visit, with shops where you can buy food, furniture and clothes. Most of the places you can visit with your learners, but there are a few areas that are only open to premium (i.e. paid) members. However, these can easily be avoided.

Apart from talking about the monster, making sure he/she is happy, buying food, eating, shopping, and visiting places, there are a number of activities that are worth doing and which include language practice.

The first of these involves making new friends. You can ask anyone you meet for friendship, visit their house and leave notes on their pinboard. This means you can involve the learners in writing as in the example (left).

If the learners in the class end up getting their own monsters, then you can make friends with them, visit their homes and send notes to them, which is what I ended up doing in my class.

It is worth mentioning that You may have to talk to the parents of the students to explain why you are doing this.

Moshi Monsters offers an interesting combination of games and education.  The best of the games is found at the Hall of Puzzles (below), where you can choose from a variety of puzzle games to play. Winning puzzles earns virtual rewards called Rox, which you can use in the shops. It’s also a way of increasing the good mood of the virtual monster.

Most of the puzzles of the day require knowledge of language to complete (such as the one on the left), and apart from the puzzle of the day, you can choose other ones to play too, which allow for more practice about colours, numbers, the alphabet, shapes, etc.

In summary, Moshi Monsters makes for a fun addition to any Primary classroom and offers a safe environment for your young learners to interact with each other (if you encourage them to open their own accounts), allowing for a fun and interesting extension of the classroom.

The look and feel of this community is cute and will appeal to young learners from about 4 or 5 years old up to 10 or 11. Pre-teens will probably find the look and feel too childish.

The First Hero

By kylemawer  |  2011/10/14 02:25 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level:  Intermediate+

Location:  Connected Classroom

Skills Focus:  Writing

Language Focus:  Narrative Tenses

Game:  The First Hero

A game set in the times of ancient greek with a nice shadow puppet look and feel to it.

Preparation

Either play the game using a walkthrough to familiarise yourself with the game or print a copy of the First Hero Walkthrough off.  Also have some dice ready, enough for each group or pair of students.

Pre-Play

  1. Introduce the area of narrative tenses as it comes up in the course book.
  2. Do some controlled writing activities from the course book or work book.
  3. Write 1-6 on the board and write some of the grammar areas next to them.

e.g.

1  Past simple

2  Past continuous

3  Past perfect

4  You can choose

5 Choose two of the tenses.

6 Write three sentences.

Play

  1. Explain the game and encourage students to suggest what you have to do.
  2. Listen to the students and follow their instructions until the last instruction for that stage of the game.  Stop before you do it so that students can see the stage of the game just before it is finished.
  3. Tell students to roll the dice and write the story.  They can write what they like but they have to use the tenses according to their dice role but they can write more if they want.  Each student needs to write so they each/ all have a copy of the story.
  4. Monitor and help with language.
  5. Repeat the above steps until the game has finished.

Post Play

  1. Students swap stories and read.  You can offer points if they can find and correct any areas.
  2. Swap stories at least three times and, if possible, so that they get a chance to read them all.  Be aware though that this could become quite repetitive and boring for the students so if you are getting them to swap more than three times keep an eye on them and stop them swapping if the activity starts to flag).
  3. Students vote on their favourite story.
NOTE
I find that letting students discuss what happened in the story in their own language just after having “played” and watched the game for a minute or so before writing, increases the range and complexity of the language they produce when they write the story.  It’s worth holding this in mind when you do this activity.  Another is that students may cheat a little with the dice roll (especially to avoid a 3 or 6).  You can choose to let this slide a little at the beginning but once they get into the writing task it’s good to be a little strict on students using their first dice roll.

Also when starting the game you have to click continue, watch a brief storm sequence and then an advert for the game site.  Be a little patient and wait until the game title screen appears again and you can click PLAY.