English – Down on the farm

By kylemawer  |  2012/09/21 03:27 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (2)

Level: Primary (7-10 year olds) beginners

Location: Connected Classroom

Skills Focus: Building a farm

Language focus:  Animals, crops, colours, numbers, prepositions of place etc

Farmville may be old news and the 80 million player mark long surpassed in 2010 (posted in Joystiq Feb 20th 2010) but this didn’t stop my two classes of 7-8 year olds and another class of 9-10 year olds playing, learning and using English and moving on from ‘Old McDonald had a farm’ to ‘Mum, Dad – I’ve got a farm in my English class’.

What is Farmville?

For those of you not familiar with Farmville, it’s a farming simulation social network game which has proved to be one of Facebook’s most popular games. You start off with an empty farm which you can expand on as you earn in-game money and experience points (XP). With the farmville money you can buy things and with XP you level up as well as earn money the better you do. How do you earn farmville money and gain XP? Basically, you grow and harvest crops, animals and trees and earn money. As you plant and harvest and complete tasks (e.g. Harvest something 100 times) you gain XP. Gain enough XP you level up and get a farmville dollar. Farmville coins are the basic most common easiest to obtain tender while farmville dollars difficult to come by. A lot of your in-class discussions will revolve around how to get them and how and when to spend them.

How do you use this with a class of language learners?

Well, working with a class we co-operatively agreed on which crops to plant, animals to buy and then negotiated various other farm management issues. This included when I needed to go online to harvest crops and animals (especially if such actions took place between classes) and how to organise the layout of the farm. Young learners aged between 7 – 9 years responded very well to bringing Farmville in to the syllabus and from that age on interest begins to wane.

What makes Farmville appeal to Young Learners?

Many course books aimed at Young Learners tend to feature similar language areas. Animals, food, colours, numbers and transport are a staple. For me Farmville contained all of these and also allowed learners to be both creative and empowered inthat they could take control of the farm management system be it with me at the helm. That is, I asked and elicited what they wanted to do and I did it for them. In this way, communication became paramount and a conduit by which learners built their farm world.

Where’s the Language?

Let’s now look at how various elements of farmville harvested langauge within the classroom.

Crops

(*seeds & Trees)

Planting, harvesting, ploughing (*plowing) and harvesting crops are essential to the game. You can buy crops at the market and then plant them on your farm. There are several distinct categories of things you can buy at the market and then each of these categories are subdivided into several specific categories. For instance, by going to the market and clicking on seeds and trees you can buy seeds, trees, fruit *(fruits), vegetables, grains, flowers (*blooms). Each of the individual crops can be seen pictured, named and with important in-game information. Here’s a screen shot (left) of six items in the fruit category.

As you can see a Bell Pepper is yellow, takes 2 days (in real time) to harvest, you earn 198 farmville coins when harvested, you gain 2 XP and it costs 75 farmville coins to buy for each plot of land you plant the crop on. The stars underneath are earnt by harvesting an increasing number of crops over three levels.

 Language

What shall we buy? I think we should buy . . . + noun

How much/ How many? Numbers

How long does a/an . . . . take to grow? Hours/ days

When can I harvest it/them? Telling the time/ days of the week

What colour is a/an . . . ? Colours

Where shall I put it on the farm? Put it . . . + prepositions of place

Language to express opinions, disagree & disagreeing

Verbs – plant, harvest, plough, put, get/ buy, etc

Animals

Animals are also bought at the market in the same way as crops. The market also has a picture of each animal, it’s name, harvest time information, earnings and XP.  Here’s a screen shot(right) of six farm yard animals in the fruit animal.

Language

See language section in ‘crops’ above. Also:

What sound does a . . . make? It goes . . .

What does a/ an . . . eat? It eats . . .

What do you call a baby . . . ?

Where does a/ an . . . live? Nationalities (see screenshot above), places & locations.

There are other things you can buy at the market such as decorations, farm aides and clothes for your avatar but to start with it’s best to stick to crops and animals and introduce other aspects of the game as you discover them either on your own or with the class.

How did we play and learn in Farmville?

I found that with me as the farm hand and my learners as the farm management I simply had to ask where I put things, why I should put them (if I thought learners should be capable of answering) and when I should collect them. If collecting or harvesting took place outside of classroom time i.e. In my time then I made learners calculate when I would have to do work on the farm (time and day) and if there was anything I should then do (plant more crops). I kept a record of this in a little note book which either I wrote down (dictated by my learners) or got them to write down (because I was busy dealing with other learner/ farm related issues). If learner’s forgot to tell me to harvest something I left it because a star appears above crops/ animals that are ready to be harvested. This is very visual so next class we could discuss why the work hadn’t been done. My answers would be “You didn’t tell me to”, or “Oh, sorry! I forgot”. Language my learners acquired and would throw back in my face at opportune moments:

Me: “Why aren’t you sitting down, Pedro?”

Pedro: “You didn’t tell me to.”

Me: Well I’m telling you now. Sit down!”

 

                    Me: “Marta, why didn’t you bring your work book today?”

                    Marta: “Oh, sorry! I forgot”.

                    Me: “Well don’t forget next time. Write it down so you remember.”

 

Usually the context, peer translation or sufficient use of tone, mime or gesture got the meaning across.

Trouble at Mill?

Once you begin to get the hang of farmville and have expanded beyond your humble beginnings you can begin to add buildings and decorations.  Placing buildings on your farm can be particularly useful.  Not only do they allow you to ‘tidy up’ and place animals inside them or store decorations but they also provide landmarks by which learners can describe where to place new items.  Some of these buildings produce items you may need more of.  For instance, there is a mill complete with water wheel which when built can be harvested for water buckets which in turn you need to grow the freebie tree saplings you get.  Which in turn brings us to a point – buy a building and you need to collect the materials to build it.  This can be a long and lengthy process so be prepared to take a long time over them.  Learners may experience a little frustration over the time it takes to build them.  You can of course pay real world money to upgrade your account, get farmville dollars and buy your building materials in bulk but that’s up to you.  I don’t.

What were the highlights?

I liked using Farmville because I felt that learners use and understanding of English had begun to evolve and develop away from the purely functional and in-game, but this is all for the good, isn’t it? There were moments we even pushed on and into the realms of the conditionals:

Me: “If we (just) finish this page and that page in the book we can visit the farm”.

With a little presentation and practice learners (L) were replying with the 0 conditional:

L: “If we (just) do this page can we visit the farm?”

Moving on to the first conditional:

L: “If we visit the farm, we’ll do this page after.”

Me: “No! We do the book first and then we’ll visit the farm.”

I have to point out that course books do not attempt to teach learners this young or of this level any of the conditionals but in this environment and context they took to it like ducks to water.  Also, I found that my learners range of language didn’t just extend to conditionals.  Modals of obligation covered some of the girls belief that ‘We have to put a pond for the ducks’ and for a small contingent of the boys that ‘we should put a crocodile with the sheep’.

Interestingly learners would usually get quite involved in negotiating and trying to ‘bend’ the rules a little.  This I thought was great and produced the moments of fun for all.  For me, as long as English is being produced they could argue until the cows came home – or at least until they needed harvesting (harvesting cows does sound a little ominous – Zynga take note).  You have to remember though that at the end of the day the class needs to do CLASS work.  No work means no play. But then the play was actually work as well – they just didn’t realise it.

*In-game names. Farmville labels some noun groups with names you may wish to change to what you feel is a more appropriate word.

Top Ten Tips For Setting Up a Digital Play Activity

By kylemawer  |  2012/09/16 03:10 Posted in All Posts, Top Tens  |  Comments (0)

Here’s a brief description of ten things to watch out for when you are using an online game with a class.  No doubt there are more things to watch out for that are concerned directly with the game but these are for when you present the game to the class.  We’ll be doing more things to watch out for at a later date.

1 You may be able to access the game at home or in the staffroom but can you access it multiple times in the connected classroom/ computer room as well?  You may find that you need to upload the latest version of flash or shockwave or even try using a different browser before you can access the game.

 

2 Be careful of the images and language content bordering the game.  Sometimes, when you are focused on the game itself it’s difficult to remember that you need to look at the webpage it’s on as well.  If there are inappropriate images or possibly live chat that contains inappropriate language then you may find yourself reconsidering using that game.  Remember though that the same game may be present on a different website that is more appropriate.

 

3. Check out links that are on the same page as the game.  This can include links bordering the game or even in the space where the game will appear.  Be sure you know where learners need to click to “Play Game” and at what moment. You don’t want learners to open new pages or follow a link that takes them away from the game.

 

4. Online games are very popular these days and more and more game sites have advertising before a game starts.  Be careful as you may have played the game once and there was what you judged to be an innocent advert but you need to check before you play with a class as these adverts change regularly and you don’t want to be caught unawares.  The other option is to set up a game before hand and run through the advert and get to the start of the game on each computer so it’s ready for learners to start playing.

 

5. Games take a moment to load and the space where you are due to play a game might contain a frozen advert for other games.  This advert may include words similar or the same as ‘Play game’.  You need to know what not to click on, if you need to wait for a certain amount of time before the right button to click appears and where that will be and what it looks like.

 

6. Some games take a certain amount of time to load and you have to take this into account.  In a connected classroom it may just mean making sure your learners are engaged in an activity while you get a game ready.  It may mean you setting up the game yourself before class on multiple computers. For this reason it’s a good idea to have played the game before and to remember the process involved in setting it up.

 

7. Some games or digital play sites require some time before actually playing in order to register with a name and an email.  It’s good practice if this is so to have learners ready and trained to write in a name that is not their own and reveals as little personal information about them as possible.  With very young learners you also have to be aware that they may not have an email of their own, remember how to access it or have to have their parent’s permission to use it.  If this is the case then be aware that in order to play a game you may have to follow a lengthy process (possibly spanning a few classes) before you can actually play it.

 

8. A game needs to be easy to find both for you and your learners. How are you going to guide a class to the game?  You could give them the site address, talk them through finding it on a search engine (say google) or have a document saved and accessible which has a direct hyperlink.  Another way is to save it as a favourite on the computer, have your own class wiki or blog set up with it on or, easiest of all, get it all ready and set up for them.

 

9.  If you need passwords and user names to access a site then make sure of two things. 1 – that you have this information written down and accessible both for you and by your learners and 2 – that the account can be accessed multiple times.  Some sites its just a matter of having a unique password and user name for each learner (say a virtual world) but others may mean multiple people are accessing a single account.  If the latter is the case then you have to be sure that a single account with a single password and username can be accessed on several computers at the same time and that different work can then be accessed and saved at the same time.

 

10. Have it clear in your mind what you are asking your learners to do.  Finding your way to digital play may be easy but there is and always should be a language aim.  If you are asking them to do other things while they play the game (take notes, have an online dictionary, walkthrough or a word document open in another window) then make sure your learners are aware of this before you play the game and while they play the game.  Don’t let them simply be playing a fun activity without clear language aims.  I always say to myself if my boss and a learners parent were here would they be happy with what their child and their teacher was doing.  The answer should be ‘yes’.

Xbox – What We Want to See

By kylemawer  |  2012/09/07 03:33 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Upper Intermediate/ Advanced

Location: Connected Classroom

Language Focus: Words connected with gaming

Skills Focus: Listening

Video: Xbox – What We Want to See 

Preparation

Download and print a copy of the ‘What We Want To See worksheet’ (see downloads below) for each learner in your class.

Pre-watch

  1. Write the words ‘Xbox – What We Want To See’ on the board.
  2. Tell learners they are going to watch a video with this title and ask them to predict the content of the video in pairs for a few minutes.
  3. Hand out the worksheet and get learners to do exercise 1 in open class.
  4. Learners then work individually to complete the ‘Word Bingo’ grid with nouns, adjectives or adverbs (exercise 2).

Watch

  1. Learners watch and listen to the video and cross off any of their words in the ‘Word Bingo’ grid as they hear them.
  2. When the video finishes learners compare.
  3. Learners watch and listen to the video again and complete the sentences (exercise 3).
  4. Hand out the script and let learners check their answers before/ while playing the video a last time (exercise 4).

Post Watch

  1. Learners look at the words underlined in the script and guess their meaning from context (exercise 5).
  2. Learners identify useful/ interesting language in the script to scaffold the production of their own text (written or spoken presentation).
  3. Learners prepare and produce their own news report on gaming.
A news report could be a PowerPoint presentation, a video recording on their mobile phones or use a free online movie tool.

Some Questions to ask your learners about the video:

  • Did they guess any of the predictions made in the video?  Which ones?
  • What different predictions did they make to the video?
  • Did they think the predictions in the video were good/ the best changes?
  • When do they think the next generation of consoles will come out?
Rumour has it that the next generation of consoles will be released for Christmas 2013 or very soon in the new year.

Downloads

 

 

World of Work vs World of Warcraft

By grahamstanley  |  2012/08/17 10:53 Posted in Guest Posts, Research  |  Comments (0)

Most people don’t make a connection between the world of work and World of Warcraft, but they intersect in many ways. On 5th August, in a webinar for IATEFL BESIG, Graham Stanley looked at this and some ways a Business English teacher could make use of computer games and gamification in their practice.

The recording for the workshop is here, and the slides are below.

Pick Your Pacman Picture

By kylemawer  |  2012/07/20 03:41 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (1)

Level: Upper Intermediate/ advanced

Location: Connected Classroom

Skills Focus: Speaking

Language focus:  Comparing & contrasting two photos

The two pictures below show works of art by the artists Metin Seven (left) and Nathan Stapley (right).  Here is some of the language you can use to talk about them:

Compare and contrast the two pictures and say what you think the artist is trying to say.

Now choose one of the pictures and talk about them:

Homework

Draw your own picture or portrait based on a video game.  Write about the picture using some of the discussion points above to help you.

 

Digital Play post-ELTon win interview

By grahamstanley  |  2012/07/15 10:19 Posted in All Posts, Research  |  Comments (1)

The British Council website English Agenda has added more ELTons related content to the site, with video interviews of the winners and photos taken during the ceremony and on the red carpet and afterwards.

Here’s the interview we gave after winning our award:

Pick Your Poster

By kylemawer  |  2012/07/06 03:59 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Upper Intermediate/ advanced

Location: Connected Classroom

Skills Focus: Speaking

Language focus:  Comparing & contrasting two photos

The two pictures below show two posters with video games.  Here is some of the language you can use to talk about them:

Compare and contrast the two pictures and say what you think the posters are trying to say about video games.

Now choose one of the pictures and talk about them:

Homework

Complete one of the tasks outlined under the discussion points.  Write about one of the pictures using some of the discussion points above to help you.

 

New in Town

By grahamstanley  |  2012/07/01 09:50 Posted in Game Buzz, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

New in Town (http://apps.facebook.com/newintown) is a Facebook game which has been getting a lot of attention recently, and was nominated for an award at the recent Gamelab conference.

It  is a life simulation game, similar to the Sims in nature, but with less of a focus on building and decorating your house.

About: You play the part of someone who has just graduated from college, who moves to a new town and starts to build a life there (hence the title). You find a job, build a career, study, explore places, make friends, and find love.

Level: Elementary+

Location: At home (and the connected classroom if you have access to an Internet-enabled computer). Mainly, it’s a game you’ll want to recommend students play in their free-time, and then you can use the game elements as examples in class.

Language focus: Various including vocabulary (clothes, shops, food, etc.) and directions, as well as being a platform for basic discussion.

New in Town is an engaging game that will no doubt appeal to your students if they like games and use Facebook.

How to use it: I recommend you start playing the game yourself to get an idea of how it works and become familiar with the gameplay, characters, and situations. Please note, if this isn’t something you think you can spend time doing, then this game is probably not for you or your students – most of the value of this game in the classroom is that you can use the places, characters, and situations in class later, but you and your students will need to be familiar with them for it to be worthwhile. So, suggest the game to your class, and if they take to it, then make use of it, and if they don’t then don’t force it on them. Having said that, I predict that many of the students will become hooked on the game, and even if it’s only some that do so, then they will pick up some useful English while they are playing even if you do nothing else with the game in class.

Example activity 1: Prepositions of Place and Directions

The students don’t have to be familiar with the game for this activity (so you can do this to introduce the game to them, for example). Use the town map (either live in the classroom or use a screenshot) to practise prepositions of place and directions. For example, show them the map and ask them to remember where everything is then, hide it from view and you can ask the following questions:

Where is the city hall? (answer = it’s in front of the Italian restaurant)

Where is the college? (answer = it’s next to / to the right of the pet shop)

Where is the cafe? (answer it’s between the solarium and the clothes shop)

As for directions, you can ask the students to give instructions how to get from one building in the city to another and then check the answers. If you have access to an IWB, you can annotate the route on the game using the pen tool.

Example activity 2: Daily routine

new in townThis relies on the students being more familiar with the game. You can ask them about their own daily routine in the game.

What do they typically do on both a working day and their day off. They should be able to talk about their job, studying to improve their skills, meeting friends, eating out (which of the places do they prefer?), going to the cinema, etc.

You can also look at the vocabulary (e.g. the food) available in the game and talk about this and the prices, etc. Which is best value for money? Which is the most healthy?

If the students really take to the game, then there are lots of other activities you can do to practise language with this game.

Panda’s Bigger Adventure

By kylemawer  |  2012/06/22 03:09 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Intermediate

Location: Computer Classroom

Skills Focus: Speaking/ Listening

Language focus:  Connectors and Sequencers

Game: Panda’s Bigger Adventure

This game is about a time travelling Panda.  Panda has to first fix his time machine and then travel between various time zones in order to beat his arch enemy – the Pirate Robot.

Preparation

Download a copy of Panda’s Bigger Adventure Flashcards (see Downloads below) for each pair of learners.  The flashcards were taken from the Panda’s Bigger Adventure Walkthrough.  Present and practice some of the language of connectors and sequencers:

Pre-play

  1. Hand out the Panda’s Bigger Adventure Flashcards and tell learners to put them in order and to make a note of it.
  2. They then have to use connectors and sequencers to work on the story of Panda’s Bigger Adventure.
  3. Monitor and input language as learners make a rough plan of the story.
  4. In new pairs, learners take it in turns to tell their story of Panda’s bigger adventure.

Play

  1. In the computer room learners play the game in pairs.
  2. Either play the game with the walkthrough open on another page.

OR

  1. Have the walkthrough open on a central computer and get learners to take turns (every 5 minutes) to read the walkthrough and relay it to their partner who uses the information to play the game.
  2. Encourage learners to use their own words and not to just repeat the words from the walkthrough.

Post Play

  1. Learner’s finish the game for homework using the walkthrough.
  2. Learners use the flashcards to tell the story of Panda’s Bigger Adventure (now that they’ve finished the game) using the target language.
  3. Allocate a different flashcard to a different learner and ask them to write out that part of the game using as many connectors and sequencers as they can. Next class collect them in and give them to pairs to discuss if they think any information/ instructions to play the game are missing.  Feedback.

Downloads

Panda’s Big Adventure 1

Panda’s Big Adventure 2

Panda’s Big Adventure 3

 

 

 

Digital Play (the book) wins an ELTON

By grahamstanley  |  2012/06/15 10:19 Posted in All Posts  |  Comments (0)

We’re still reeling from Digital Play (the book) winning the British Council’s ELT award for innovation (the ELTons) in teacher resources, presented to us at a ceremony held in London at Tavistock House on May 23rd.

Kyle and I went to London the same day and walked to the BMA building (Tavistock House), where the awards ceremony was being held from our hotel near Baker street.

When we got there, we took part in the red carpet interviews that the British Council conducted as part of the event, and spoke to Luke Meddings, who was tirelessly interviewing all of the guests. It was a great way of building up the excitement, and Luke did a fabulous job – you can also watch all of this on the British Council’s English Agenda website, the new home of the ELTons.

 

Once inside, we met up with Nick (pictured with us in the photo below) from Delta, our publishers, and other friends and colleagues, sharing wine and canapés. The work from all of those short-listed was on display and the talk was of what was going to happen over the next couple of hours. There was also mention of whether any of us had been told that we’d won, and a rumour passed around that the winners would have already been informed – this was important, as I started to think that we hadn’t won because of this.

Before long, we were all asked to take our seat in the auditorium of the BMA (British Medical Association) building. This stunning building was built at the beginning of the 19th century. Charles Dickens used to live there, and wrote Bleak House, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities there.

In the auditorium, the British Council’s Michael Carrier introduced the awards, giving a background to why they were set up (ten years ago) and then he handed over to the presenter of the evening, Scott Thornbury. Scott was a brilliant host who had both presented the ELTons before and won on two previous occasions.

As the first award was presented, I realised I should have gone to the Gents beforehand. By the time a very surprised Nik Peachey had been called to the stage to collect the award for Excellence in course innovation, I’d decided that I couldn’t wait, so I got up and left the auditorium.

I was directed four floors downstairs, and by the time I got back, our award category had come and gone. As I walked back into the auditorium, Sue Lyon Jones called me over and whispered in my ear “Where were you, Graham? You won”.

I wandered back to my seat in a daze to find an equally stunned Kyle, who had gone to the stage to collect the award with Nick, but as the only thing he’d prepared was a joke about his co-writer looking like Elton John, and finding him absent, he had been lost for words for a minute or so, before he collected his composure. You can see all of this in the recording of the awards ceremony.

The rest of the awards ceremony passed me by, until I was unexpectedly called up by Scott to make the speech I’d missed. Thanks to Luke, who suggested Scott do this.

There followed more interviews, more wine and more canapés, then a trip to the pub afterwards. It was quite a celebration, and Kyle and I only found our way back to the hotel afterwards by asking a couple of people talking on a street corner near Baker Street. Strangely, it turned out they were Catalan, from Barcelona. a surreal end to a surreal experience.