Dark Visions – A Gothic Horror Story

By kylemawer  |  2012/06/08 03:27 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Advanced/ Mature students

Location: Computer Classroom

Skills Focus: Reading/ Writing

Game: Dark Visions

You arrive at a strange house with a mysterious doctor who introduces himself as James Thaxton Smith, an assistant to your uncle who is the doctor at this psychiatric hospital.  He sees you to the guest room where you are to stay but time passes and you soon get bored waiting.  Explore the house and discover dark secrets and strange goings on.  Can you solve the mystery before it’s too late?

There is a lot of text in this Flash game so treat it as a reading for pleasure activity.  If students get too frustrated with the puzzles and are finding it difficult to progress in the game then point them towards a Dark Visions Walkthrough, which they can open in a separate browser.

Pre-Play

  1. This pre-play activity is optional and you could argue worth dropping.  It does spoil the game itself some what by giving plot spoilers.  However, it does engage them with reading a lot more text while familiarising them with how to play the game.  I downloaded a copy of the Dark Visions walkthrough (see Downloads below) and made a copy for each group of 8 students.  I cut the walkthrough up into each chapter (nine in total) and gave them out but keeping the one that said ‘The End’ back.
  2. Each student reads their text to themselves and then takes it in turns to paraphrase it to their group.
  3. Once they’ve done this tell them to figure out the correct order.  That is, the original order.  For this reason keep an original uncut copy of the walkthrough.  Monitor and help with any language questions.  Encourage them to answer the questions posed in the walkthrough even if it is just predicting the answer.
  4. Feedback and get students to discuss any differences first with other groups and then, if necessary, with the original copy.

ALTERNATIVE

Students watch the trailer and predict what happens in the game.
Play
  1. Students can use their knowledge of the walkthrough, a printed copy of the walkthrough or an online copy of the walkthrough to play the game.
  2. You may want to point out that you leave the guest bedroom by walking towards them.  They then use the three icons to look at things (1. eye), perform an action such as pick things up (2. hand) and walk (3. the figure). As they collect things these things will appear in their inventory.

Post Play

  1. Students discuss what they thought of the game.
  2. Write a review of the game.
  3. Write a new report of the events that happened in the game.
WARNING
There is a scene to rather a gruesome and bloody murder at one point in the game and you may wish to view the game in its entirety before you choose to do it with a class.  For this reason it’s worth taking the time to have fun playing the game yourself.  Why not?  You may enjoy it and it’ll give you valuable insight in to something you are asking your students to do.

Downloads

Dark Visions Walkthrough

Cinderella’s Magic Escape

By kylemawer  |  2012/05/25 03:09 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Beginners

Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Reading

Language focus: Directions & verb + preposition

Game: Cinderella’s Magic Escape

This is one for the girl’s out there.  It’s a point and click game where you have to solve puzzle’s and help Cinderella get to the ball on time.

Preparation

Make sure you can access the game in the computer room where you want your class to play the game.  Ideally you want to have two tabs open on your browser – one with the game itself and one with the Cinderella Magic Escape walkthrough.  This way learners can read the walkthrough and play the game.  You may want to look at the walkthrough and decide if you want to pre-teach some of the vocabulary.  The underlined words in blue are important but learners can also click on them and see a pisture of them (they’ll have to click on the ‘show previos page’ button to return to the walkthrough).

Pre-play

Play hangman for the word Cinderella.

Elicit the story and write some of the language on the board.

If you can show them a picture of the game and identify vocabulary (I-spy works well).

Click on the walkthrough and ask them if they know any of the words in blue.

Click on the words in blue to confirm if they are right (this is showing them how to use the walkthrough).

Play

Take learners to the computer room and get them to open the game and the walkthrough in a browser.

Tell them the first team (if they are in small groups) or person (if they are playing individually) has to stand up and shout “Stop!”

Play the game until you have a winner and then stop.

 

Post Play

Ask your learners what words they learnt in the game and brainstorm them onto a board.

Learners copy the words and write a dictionary for the game.

 

Homework

Give learners a copy of the the Game and walkthrough and tell then to finish the game (or play it again if they want) and write some more words in their game dictionary.

 

 

 

 

 

Reading Game – Harry Quantum

By grahamstanley  |  2012/05/18 05:34 Posted in Game Plan  |  Comments (1)

Level: Intermediate

Location: Multiple computers (Computer room /class set of laptops, etc.)

Skills focus: Reading

Game: Harry Quantum Episode 1: TV Go Home (point-and-click adventure)

Time: 20 minutes+ Learners will probably need 30-40 minutes to finish, but they can always finish the game at home (a great way of giving them reading homework without them thinking of it as homework!).

Preparation:

Harry Quantum is a game that requires little preparation to take advantage of. Tell the learners they are going to play the part of a private detective and take on a case which they will have to solve by finding clues – the game revolves around finding different objects, combining them and then using them at various points of the game.

The learners will need to have two browser tabs active – one with the game and the other with the walkthrough.

The teacher should play at least part of the game before asking the learners to do so – this way you will be able to better help them if they get stuck. Play with the walkthrough and you will see how easy it is to play when you use these instructions. This way, the game acts as a reading comprehension.

Play: 

The learners are introduced to the story and have to read to understand their objective (to find some missing TV programmes). As the game progresses, they will find it increasingly difficult to know what to do, which is where the walkthrough comes in.

The walkthrough that the game developers provide is a series of scenes labelled with vocabulary and written instructions that give just the right amount of information for the player to complete the puzzles, but not too much that the game becomes uninteresting.

The text is compressed (see screenshot from the game walkthrough, on the right) and the learners will have to understand the instructions if they want to continue.

If one pair of learners get ahead of the others, you can always ask them to stop and to help the others by telling the whole class what they have to do next to get to the same point as them. Otherwise, you can let them get on with it and you can go and help the ones who are trailing behind.

Post Play: As the game has a story to it, you can always ask the learners to recreate the story when they are back in class, and then to write their own version of it. To make it more interesting, you can have them write from different characters’ points of view.

 

Hunger Games

By kylemawer  |  2012/05/11 03:49 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (0)

Level: Advanced/ Proficiency

Location: Connected Classroom

Skills Focus: Reading

Language Activity:  Dictionary work

Language focus: Translating words

Game: Hunger Games – Trial by Fire

This is a very fast paced timed game based on a scene from the block busting film the Hunger Trials.  This activity was designed to be played by a monolingual class and it helps if you the teacher has a level of proficiency in the language to act as referee if any disputes arise over translations.  Otherwise, rely on your learners sense of fair play.

Preparation

Make sure you have enough dictionaries for each learner in the class.

Preplay

Hangman The Hunger Games

Ask learners if they have seen it.  Ask them to tell the class what it is about.

Tell them they are going to play a game based on the part of the film where they the contestants start to play the Hunger Games.

Ask a learner to tell the class what happens.  What decisions the players make and why.

Hand out the dictionaries

Rules of the game

Divide the class into three teams (districts).  Each learner has a dictionary.  Decide which team is going to go first.  That team chooses a contestant to be in the hunger games.  That person stands up.  The game starts.  The contestant reads the text.  If someone from the other team puts their hand up the contestant has to answer a vocabulary question about the text they have read.  If they can answer the question correctly they can continue unless someone else has a question about a different vocabulary item.  The contestant has 30 seconds to get as far as possible through the game.  When the game finishes the game passes to the next team (district).  The game continues round the class until the teacher declares a winner.

Post Play

Give your learners the game address so they can go and play the game at home.  They play to practice and prepare for a single round of the game at the end of next class.

 

If your learners liked this game they may like to play this one at home or on multiple computers:

Hunger Games – Tribute Trials

Tell them that if they win or figure out how to win you’d like them to tell you.  You can then ask them to explain their strategy to the class.

 

 

Focus on genre: Escape the room games

By grahamstanley  |  2012/05/04 09:46 Posted in Game Genres  |  Comments (0)

If you are a regular to this blog, then you’ll know that not all online computer games are ideal for using in the language classroom. Some genres are better than others. This is a new series looking at the genres we recommend, why they are good for language learning/teaching, how best to exploit them, and then example lesson plans with some games.

The first of the series looks at what is perhaps Digital Play’s favourite genre: the escape the room game.

Genre: Escape the room

Description: A point-and-click adventure game where players have to escape from imprisonment by exploiting their surroundings. Sometime they are called simply escape games, because not all of them involve a room!

Reason for using: What makes escape the room games good for language teaching is the fact that they are puzzles that have an inbuilt information gaps. The puzzles are usually very difficult to solve, unless you have a walkthrough (i.e. the solution to the game, presented in order). fortunately for teachers, whenever a game is popular (i.e. a good game) there will be a walkthrough to it that players have produced and posted on the Internet.

Tasks: Escape the room games make good live listening (i.e. listening comprehension when the teacher speaks) activities. This is the easiest way of exploiting the game for language learning, and it requires very little preparation. All the teacher needs is the walkthrough to the game. You read the clues out to the students, grading the language to suit the level of the class, and check comprehension by noticing which students move on in the game (if they were listening to you and understood, then they know what to do next).

There are, of course, plenty of other ways of using these games for other skills work, or for practising vocabulary or grammar. You can see examples of these below.

Examples with lesson plans:

  • MOTAS (lesson plan), Mystery of Time and Space. Perhaps the most popular escape the room game, created in 2001, with 20 levels increasing in difficulty. The puzzles are varied, and involve collecting objects, moving parts of the room, deciphering passwords, etc. A joy to play and one which works very well with students.
  • The great kitchen escape (lesson plan). An example of an escape game that can be used to help learners with kitchen vocabulary, and with describing objects.
  • Escape the plush room (lesson plan). This time, the escape the room game has been used to help students with short answers and prepositions.
  • Room fake (lesson plan). Give the students the numbered walkthrough and this game becomes a reading comprehension.
Other related blog posts:

Charles Dickens’ London

By kylemawer  |  2012/04/27 03:39 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (3)

Level: Upper Intermediate/ Advanced

Location: Computer Classroom

Skills Focus: Reading

Language Activity:  Note-taking

Language focus: Used to/ would/ could have

Game: Charles Dickens’ London

To celebrate the bi-centennial anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens, Digital Play has found a game for you packed full of lovely written text for your learners to practice reading and learn a little bit about what living around the year 1812 would have been like.

 

I’ve got learners to play this game as a straight reader.  That is, they read it for their own pleasure but they may use an online dictionary if they really want to.  However, this game also works well with note-taking while playing and then later generating sentences that focus on used to and would.  Of course, a presentation and a little practice on this language is best before the game particularly if you ask learners to predict what life was like 200 years ago (when Dickens lived).  You also have to be sure you’ve covered the main differences between used to and would.  Could have sentences come mainly from the game which tells you what you could have done by a certain stage but didn’t.

Preparation

Print of a copy of the Charles Dickens’ London worksheet (see Downloads below).  Present and practice the target language.

Pre-play

Hangman Charles Dickens on the board and elicit and information about him. (Do your students know who he is?).

Tell them he lived in London 200 years ago and elicit a few used to and would sentences from students about him.

Hand out the worksheet and in pairs learners make a few predictions.

Play

Learners take the worksheet to the computer room and sit in pairs (player and note-taker)

Learners find the game. (Google – Charles Dickens London game).

Stress they need to play the game and take notes.  The first person to finish note taking can play and do no writing.

If you see a pair playing and not note-taking click on the refresh button at the top – they restart the game.

One learner plays the game while the other takes notes.  Change every 5 minutes or so.

Monitor and elicit sentences verbally from learners who use their notes.

Post Play

Learners compare notes and expand on their own if necessary.

Learners make sentences using their notes and target language.

Learners write a composition about Life in Charles Dickens London.

 

Downloads

Charles Dickens’ London Worksheet

 

 

 

 

Unlocked achievements

By grahamstanley  |  2012/04/20 11:57 Posted in Game Plan  |  Comments (1)

We have written about gamification in previous posts on this blog, including tools such as Class Dojo and Chore Wars. Here’s another way you can use the idea of gamification in class if you have a data projector and computer (or IWB) in order to motivate students to work harder and for you to help with classroom management.

This activity requires a teacher to have a connected classroom, or at least an IWB or computer with a data projector in class. It should help motivate the students to work harder, come to class on time and do their homework more often.

Level: All

Location: Connected classroom

Focus: Classroom management, motivation

PREPARATION

Create a table of possible achievements for your class. You can use some of the ideas in the table below, and also add your own, depending on the teaching context and what you want to focus on (punctuality, homework, etc.)

PLAY

1. Write unlocked achievements on the board and ask the students if they know where they might see this and what it means. If any of your students play computer games they will tell you that this happens when you reach a particular target in a video game (find all of the hidden vehicles, complete all parts of a level, etc.).

 

2.Show them the table (above) and ask them to brainstorm any other possible achievements to add.

3. Start using this in class and keep a record of the achievements of the class and of individuals either on a wall chart, or using the IWB software (or a wiki, etc.)

4. If you wish, add another column for Rewards and decide on a reward to give the students if they unlock an achievement (although unlocking an achievement is in itself the reward in a video game).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Digital Play on the short-list for an ELTON

By grahamstanley  |  2012/04/16 00:20 Posted in All Posts, Research  |  Comments (0)

Kyle and I are very excited that Digital Play (the book, not the blog) has been short-listed for a British Council 2012 ELT Innovations award (an ELTON).

This prestigious award is given to the very best in English Language Teaching. Competition is fierce, given the amount of very high quality language teaching and learning materials that are published every year, and so to get this far is a great honour for us.

The book has been short-listed in the category ‘Innovation in Teacher Resources‘ and we are honoured to be in the company of such a fine list of resources.

The other short-listed resources in our category include #eltchat, the Twitter-based weekly professional development chat for teachers; How to Help your Child LEarn English, Claire Selby’s guide for parents; Sarah Lane’s Instant Academic Skills from CUP; Jim Scrivener’s Learning Teaching (3rd edition, MacMillan); Herbert Puchta & Marion Williams’ Teaching Young Learners to Think (Helbling); and the website Tune Into English. There are  some amazing resources for teachers here.

Of course, we’d love to win, and I am now practising my acceptance speech in front of the mirror even as I write, but it certainly looks difficult one to pull off with a list of innovative teacher resources such as this. Either way, we are celebrating being short-listed by going to the ceremony in London on May 23rd to join in the fun of the night – after all it’s the ELT version of the Oscars!

Reservoir Dogme

By kylemawer  |  2012/04/13 03:29 Posted in All Posts, Game Plan  |  Comments (1)

Level: Upper Intermediate/ mature students

Location: Connected Classroom

Skills Focus: Reading/ Speaking

Language focus:  Meaning from context/ hypothetical situations

Game: Mr. Vengeance

This game contains scenes of cartoon violence (against stickmen) using guns and with scenes of blood so discretion is advised when using this game.  Adapting this game came about as a result of mature students in a private class asking for a game that was more like a first person shooter such as Call of Duty, which in turn was the best-selling console game of 2011.  This has graphics no way near as good as the afore-mentioned game which, to be honest, was one reason I chose it. I mean, they can’t get their way completely now can they?

Mr. Vengeance follows a character who worked as a cop.  The prologue in the game explains how he returned home one night to find his family had been killed by a gang of criminals.  Mr. Vengeance then decides to take justice into his own hands and kill the gang responsible for the death of his family.  My question to you is, could this be used with one of your classes or should it be avoided.

I based the pedagogy on Dogme principles laid out in Teaching Unplugged: Dogme in English Language Teaching.

Preparation

At Digital Play we always recommend that you play a game before trying it out with a class for a number of reasons.  Not only does it help you to familiarise yourself with the games language content and play but also, and this is important in this game, to check for visual and language content that is inappropriate.  There is no bad language in this game but there is a drug reference (the gang produces a fictitious drug called ‘V-intro’) and there are scenes of a violent nature using guns.

Preplay

  1. Hangman console games.
  2. Brainstorm console games.
  3. Students rank the games in order of most violent to least violent.
  4. Feedback and find out who has played which games and what they think of the use of violence and adult themes in console games.
  5. Explain they are going to play a game called Mr. Vengeance and to predict what the game involves.
  6. Explain the controls in the game:
Mouse          Shoot
Space bar      Health
R              Reload

Play

As you play the game ask questions and encourage discussion about language, context and content within the game.  There is a lot of text and you have to click to get past this so this is an excellent opportunity to discuss these points.  The shoot-em-up parts of the game can be played by a volunteer using the mouse but be careful that they don’t click past any text.  As soon as the shoot-em-up sequences finish you should ask the volunteer to sit down.  You can then ask the class how well they did, how and when they could have done better and what should they do now (reload, add health, look out for corners etc).

Here is an example of some of the language from scenes that appears within the game (black) and possible questions you the teacher can ask (blue):

Darling, I am back! How do you say darling in your language? What do you say when you get back home? What can you see when you are standing at your front door? It sounds a little unnatural, how do you think I’d change it to make it sound more natural?

What’s that? What has he seen? What do you see first when you open your front door? What do you think has happened? If it happened in your house what would it be? What would you do?

How did this trash get into my house? What does he mean by trash? What is it? What does it look like? What could it be?

Ding-ding Who do you think it is phoning? What does your phones ring tone sound like? What does your mobile ring tone sound like? How often do you change it?

Hello, someone has got into my house, please, call the police! It sounds a little unnatural, how do you think I’d change it to make it sound more natural? Would you say that if you thought someone was in your house? What would you do? What would you do once you put the phone down? Instead of ‘got into my house’, what else could you say?

Is it Mr. Vengeance’s house? It sounds a little unnatural, how do you think I’d change it this time to make it sound more natural? What other ways can you start a phone call? 

Yes! Do you hear me? Someone has got into my house and it seems they are stil here, please, call . . . This doesn’t sound right either, how do you think I’d change it to make it sound more natural? What’s the difference between hear and listen? I don’t think it’s a real question so what is he saying and why? What makes him think they are still there?

Wonderful. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Why does he say wonderful? Who do you think it is on the other end of the phone?

Who’s that? I’d say ‘this’ instead of ‘that’, but can you tell me why?

Hello! Hello!

The door is jammed, I can’t open it. What other words for jammed can you think off? What do you think is jamming the door? What should he do? What would you do?

(stop at the next door before you open it ask for a volunteer)

Elicit the game controls:

R= reload

Space = health

Left click = fire

O Lord, please . . . What’s going on? What’s happened to his family? Why?  Why are they not there?

At the end of the shoot-em-up sequence ask the volunteer to sit down.

Basically, this activity should evolve around the interactivity between the game and the class, the teacher and the learners and between the learners themselves.  If the class gets involved in lively discussion at any point and you feel they would benefit more from a discussion in pairs and small groups then do so.

Post Play

 

 

The 5 Levels of Digital Storytelling

By kylemawer  |  2012/03/30 03:07 Posted in Guest Posts, Uncategorized  |  Comments (23)

It’s our pleasure to introduce a guest blog post by James Taylor, who has been adapting gaming elements (such as leveling up) and applying them to digital storytelling. Thanks, James for a very interesting blog post and loads of great web links and resources which you’ll find near the end – Some of them we’re familiar with here at Digital play but we can’t wait to dip into all the others.  Over to you James . . .

When we think of introducing web-based tools into our classrooms, as teachers we often obsess over the technical side of things. We worry about setting everything up, about dealing with passwords, about computers crashing and our students not doing what they are supposed to do.

We are not wrong to consider these things, whether we teach kids or adults. However, we shouldn’t lose sight of the reason for doing the activity in the first place, which is for language practice not IT skills. By using the right tools in the correct order, it’s possible to build learners linguistic confidence and increase their technical capabilities, just as you would structure the activities in a traditional, ‘off-line’ lesson.

In this article, I will demonstrate how you can increase the levels of complexity both technically and linguistically in web-based storytelling by using tools that ask more of your students at each stage. This is always prefaced by an offline warm up, which will enable you to connect the digital version to the analogue. If necessary because you don’t have access to a computer room or enough computers for it to be feasible, you could spend most or all of the lesson time with the offline activities and set the online activities as homework.

I should point out that I haven’t included any language activities in this article, instead concentrating on the type of storytelling practiced at each level. In my view, these activities create numerous opportunities for language work and should be used as a resource for generating interesting student created content which can then be mined for learning.


Level One – Mad Libs

Mad Libs is a very basic parlour game popular in North America. It’s based around the simple premise of ‘fill in the gaps’. Players have to choose random words with only a lexical category to help them, and these words are then placed into a short story. The results are often silly and nonsensical, but are very effective in raising grammar awareness, and for our purposes, can serve as a basic introduction to narrative structures. (Read here for a more detailed explanation of the rules.)

You can start off line by using the books or, if they are not available to you, with some Mad Libs you have found online and printed. Give them out to students and let them play around with them, becoming accustomed to the format. You can then take them online where there are numerous websites where they can complete more Mad Libs. If you think they are able, you can even give them the chance to make their own and share them with each other on wordlibs.com.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level one of storytelling:

Level One web-links

http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
http://www.links2love.com/poem_generator.htm
http://www.funbrain.com/cgi-bin/wt.cgi?A1=s
http://www.rinkworks.com/crazylibs/
http://www.madlits.com/
http://www.wordlibs.com/index.php?
http://www.write-better-english.com/Create-a-silly-story.aspx
http://www.elibs.com/
http://www.madglibs.com/createyourown.php

Level Two – Photo Stories

With photo stories, students will have to start using their imagination. There is no vocabulary for them to rely on and it has a much freer structure. The lack of right or wrong answers means that they can come up with their own versions, although they don’t have to be long, one sentence per picture or less is fine if that is all they can come up with at this stage.

You can begin offline by giving the students five pictures which seem to have no connection at all. In groups they can put the pictures in any order they like and come up with a short story to match.

When you go online, you can start by using the site 5 Card Flickr, in which the students choose five random images and have a space to write an accompanying story, which then can be easily shared. This can then be developed through a host of photograph and storytelling websites, ideally encouraging the students to use their own photos whenever possible.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level two of storytelling:

Level Two web-links

http://web.nmc.org/5cardstory/index.php
http://www.fotobabble.com/
http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/?custom=
http://www.pimpampum.net/phrasr/index.php
http://www.pimpampum.net/bookr/
http://everyphototellsastory.blogspot.com/
http://photopeach.com/
http://www.piclits.com/
https://www.tabblo.com/studio
https://voicethread.com/#home

Level Three – Comic Strips

This the first activity where the students are really restrained by the conventions of a particular narrative format. In the comic strip, there is obviously limited space for dialogue and a finite number of panels. For this reason, I think it’s a good idea to begin by making them aware of some of the conventions of the format. You can do this by handing out comic strips divided up into individual panels and then the students have to rebuild the comic in the right order. Obviously they all need to have the same strand of comic, whether it’s Garfield, Dilbert or Andy Capp.

There are numerous ways of doing this, one of which is to give each learner a panel each and get them to find each other by doing a mingle. Once they have successfully found the people who have panels from the same strip as them, you can collect class feedback on how they knew they belonged together. This should bring up some areas including subject, style, background art, panel size, other characters present and so on. This should then lead to them having a basic understanding of how a comic strip is put together.

Online, there are many comic strip building websites, where students can create their own mini-narratives, share them with each other and print them for posterity. One example is makebeliefscomix.com, where students can create simple, good-looking comic strips. Aware of its educational potential, they are many resources for teachers on the website, including 21 Ways To Use MakeBeliefsComix in the Classroom, writer prompts and printable handouts.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level three of storytelling:

Level Three web-links

http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
http://www.mainada.net/comicssketch
http://marvel.com/create_your_own_superhero
http://chogger.com/
http://www.comicmaster.org.uk/
http://www.creaza.com/
http://www.wittycomics.com/make-comic.php
http://www.stripcreator.com/make.php
http://pixton.com/uk/

http://superherosquad.marvel.com/create_your_own_comic

Level Four – Storybooks

We have been building the level of narrative complexity as the levels have progressed, and now we take a bigger leap by creating story books. The leap is bigger as this time the students are required to make longer narratives, but they still has the support of images to rely on.

As with comic strips, you could begin by introducing the students to the format of the books. Obviously most learners are familiar with story books, but rarely will they have considered how they are put together. This knowledge becomes important when you have to create one of your own.

To introduce my students to this format, I divide a storybook into two parts, then take the individual pages, shuffle them and give them to two groups. The students then have to follow the narrative and put their half of the story in the right order. Once this is complete, they can look at the completed other half in order to get the finished narrative.

This kind of activity helps warm the students up before they go online and create their own storybook. They become more aware of what is required of them and how they can create their own. Of course, it’s too much to ask them to draw as well as write, at least in the limited time frame in which most of us operate, so a website like storybird.com is priceless. It has a beautiful collection of illustrations available for your to choose from as well as an intelligent, well put together, and most importantly, easy to use interface.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level four of storytelling:

Level Four Web-links

http://storybird.com
https://www.tikatok.com
http://www.artofstorytelling.org/picture-a-story
http://www.kerpoof.com/#/activity/storybook
http://alpha.zooburst.com/
http://myths.e2bn.org/story_creator/
http://www.storyjumper.com/

Level Five – Animated films

The final level gives students the opportunities to make their own animated movies. By now, having been through the previous four levels, they are familiar with many of the narrative conventions that are used in films as well as comic strips, story books etc, and they’ve had plenty of opportunities to practice their storytelling skills too. Hopefully they picked up some language along the way as well. Now they can put all of these newly acquired skills together in a short film.

Again, you probably don’t have time for the students to create their own artwork, so zimmertwins.com is perfect for allowing your learners to make their own stylish short films while concentrating on the key objective of language. Furthermore, the website contains activities and a version for schools where you can sign up for a teachers account.

By now your students should be comfortable with storytelling, both online and off. Of course, if you wish, you could extend this further by getting them to write their own stories or make their own movies or radio plays. That is when you know that they have reached the highest level of digital storytelling.

Below is a list of links that you may find useful at level five of storytelling:

Level Five Web-links

http://www.zimmertwins.com/
http://sketchfu.com/home
http://www.doink.com/
http://dvolver.com/live/mm.html
http://www.masher.com/index.jsp
http://www.xtranormal.com/
http://www.creaza.com/
http://www.kerpoof.com/ – choose the ‘Make a Movie’ option.
http://www.digitalfilms.com/index.php
http://www.fluxtime.com/animate.php

Note: This article is based on a course I taught and created with Dan Conyers, a British Council teacher based in Saudi Arabia and South Korea. Thanks to him for his contribution.

James Taylor is a freelance EFL teacher based in Brussels, Belgium. When not teaching business and general EFL, he can be found at his blog, on Twitter and hosting the #ELTchat podcast.