1  Point and click

These games rely on you moving the cursor around the screen and clicking the mouse.  By printing off a written walkthrough or by using a video walkthrough, a large variety of language activities can be generated.   Try a relay dictation using either a written or video walkthrough or simply use either of them yourself to dictate game play.  Alternatively check out these games – the anti-bullying Dixie the Nerd, a selection of ten point-and-click games and their walkthroughs or Windosill.

2 Escape the room

A sub genre of point and click games where typically you have to find and possibly combine objects in a room or house to get out through a locked door.  As previously mentioned above, with a written walkthrough or a video walkthrough a large variety of language activities can be generated.  You could also get learners to write out their own walkthroughs as they play.  Alternatively check out these games – MOTAS, Kitchen Escape or the scary reader for the the zombie game I Remain.

3 Arcade

Arcade games generally rely on reaction speeds rather than logic or puzzle solving skills. Passing to the next stage usually means completing a simple task within a specific time limit. The next stage and subsequent stages usually require the player to complete the same task but with an increasing complexity or in a faster time. Language generated tends to be quite simple and repetitive.  Some of these games are great for drilling the language of directions (pacman), colours (sveerz) and spelling (Alphaattack and Type ‘em up).

4. Puzzle Games

These games tend to be quite abstract and typically involve arranging geometric forms to achieve a goal (e.g. Tetris). Puzzles usually involve solving rather simple problems. Problem solving games generally test a players awareness of patterns and/ or short term memory.  Language generated tends to be isolated to individual language items such as object vocabulary, instructions and prepositions.  Puzzle games include spookymatch or Orbox.  They are great games to play as a reward for good work or behaviour as they are generally over very quickly or can be paused and returned to later.

5 Strategy Games

This is a game in which the gamer is presented with a number of possible choices in game play which will effect how they progress in the game. Try the games stop disasters, 3rd world farmer or Age of Empires.  The first two provide a context for some interesting discussions when used in a classroom while the last one takes place over a longer time frame and provides writing practice and an opportunity for learners to report on the game and progress in class time.

6 Adventure Games

Adventure games are a sub genre of point and click games but usually differ in that the game has got strong narrative elements.  There is usually a central character, a storyline, objectives to be achieved, an enemy and an outcome at the end.  Games covered in this genre on this blog include Morningstar (a sci-fi story), The Miller Estate (a spooky mystery), Hetherdale ( a jungle adventure) and Avalon (a fantasy text based adventure game) to name just four.

7 Casual Games

These games are aimed at a mass audience of people who tend to play games on a casual basis.  These games have been brought into the news recently with their rise in popularity on social network sites such as facebook.  Games such as farmville, mafia wars, scrabble like game, word games and puzzles can all be included in this genre.  Why not ask your learners if they play any and if they play any in common then get them to describe and compare their game playing.  Here’s a list of 10 casual games on facebook.

8 Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs)

Is a computer role playing genre in which a massive number of players interact with one another within a fictional virtual world.  The player assumes the role and takes control of the actions of a fictional character.  There are a lot of MMORPGs out there but one we have looked at already on this blog is Astro Empires.  The most famous MMORPG is probably World of Warcraft.

9 Alternate Reality Games

Sometimes abbreviated to an ARG.  These games consist of an interactive narrative that is based in the real world.  Typically they often use multiple media and game elements, to establish a narrative that the gamer can affect by either contributing ideas or taking actions.  Two ARGs we’ve already looked at on this blog were Smokescreen and Urgent Evoke.  We have also done a spotlight on ARG developer Jane McGonigal.

10 Virtual Worlds

This is a computer based simulated environment which has a strong online community element.  A virtual world such as second life has generated a lot of interest in education.   Here is a post we did on a Robin Hood learning Quest in Second Life.

Whitesmoke is an online free to play Alternate Reality Game (ARG).  Commissioned by Channel 4 Education and aimed at teens, Whitesmoke hopes to educate by providing a personal taster (through a fictional game) of what it would be like to experience some of the dangers of social networking.

WEBSITE SCREENSHOT

INTERESTED?

Read more about this ARG in a Guardian article or visit the Whitesmoke official website.

MY EXPERIENCE

This ARG has been great with an advanced class.  We started up the game during a computer room session where learners were fed up with doing online exam practice and wanted a game that was a bit more mature and serious than a point-and-click game.  For homework I asked them to prepare a short talk on what they had learnt while playing the game.  Next class I was surprised at how involved they’d become in the game and how greater their awareness of internet dangers were.  In fact, they were teaching me.  Subsequently, each time we encounter a new grammar point in the book I am asking them to ‘smokescreen-erize’ the examples.  As a result my teen learners are not only personalizing the grammar and continuing to learn language but also have a platform to discuss such serious issues as identity theft, online stalking and freedom of online information.  It has also provided a long term reading project for the computer room where I can not only assist them with language items but also engage them in mutually interesting and authentic dialogue on elements of the game, issues and the game characters.  It has almost become a class soap opera.

YOUR COMMENTS WELCOME

If any one else is interested enough to try this out in class I would be interested in how they use it.  At the moment, for me, it is a means to use computer time, encourage reading outside the English class context and it is a platform for discussing issues, experiences, opinions and stories.

An EVOKE is defined as an urgent call to innovative solutions to real life problems.  In the same way that EVOKE is calling for gamers to solve in-game problems which could then be applied to real world strategies.   Think of the gamers as parts of a huge organic computer brain being set the task of solving problems facing Africa within the context of an online ARG.

The game targets Africa and aims to look into using playfulness and gaming as a tool for solving the bigger issues facing the world today, such as “hunger, poverty, disease, war and oppression, water access, education, climate change”.

Could this game as a languguage learning tool?  Such a game could not only have great potential within the TEFL context for motivating language learners but ARGs have had a fair share of success stories already.  The European Union ran an Education Project called ‘Babel Tower’ aimed at Secondary school language learners from around the world.  This was part of their ARGuing for Multilingual Multivation Project and was rated as a huge success.

ARGs run prior to Evoke have included Superstruct and World without oil and Superstruct which reached ‘Game Over’ status in 2008 and 2009 respectively.

To learn more about the EVOKE Alternate Reality Game project then visit the official website, Watch the trailer, or read up on the game story so far by checking out the graphic novel storyline.

So why not Make Life a Game and Change The World?

Her ARG The Lost Ring, which ran at the same time as the last Olympics, was a great example of how these sorts of games can engage huge audiences and be be both collaborative and creative without losing elements of competition. The idea revolved around devising the rules of play to a lost sport. Now the game is over, but you can get an idea of the kind of creative content that was produced by people while the ARG was running by browsing the archives.

EFL CLASSROOM IDEA – SUPERSTRUCT

Another game that Jane was involved in is Superstruct, which can be used with students in the English language classroom. The premise is for players to imagine what their lives will be like in the year 2019. Although the description on the site tells us the game is now finished (it ran for 6 weeks from October 2008), students can still register and interact with the content. You could also use the game in the classroom for discussion and as an impulse for writing.

If you want to get students to use the site, they can register in a matter of seconds (if they have an email address) and the next step if to create a profile by answering the following questions about their life and world in 2019 (which could also be done in the classroom instead):

• Where do you live?
• Who do you live with?
• What do you do? Where do you work?
• What matters to you most?

After comparing answers, the next step is to watch one or two of the Superstruct videos with students and ask them to react to them to come up with possible solutions to the problems.

OR/AND

Students could prepare video diaries such as the one Laura (one of the participants in the ARG) prepared:

If the students react well to this, there are other missions for them to follow on the site.

Find out more about how to play the game by watching Jane’s introductory video:

HOW GAMES CAN CHANGE EDUCATION

Jane is particularly interested in looking at how games can change the way that we learn and work in the future, something which she explains in more depth in the short video interview below.

She also explains the potential that collaborative gaming such as that promoted through XBox Live can contribute to the development of collective intelligence and other skills.

Jane talks about the future challenge for education and the world of work to take advantage of the potential of such gaming systems. Surely there are possibilities for language learning and teaching here. What do you think?

More about Jane McGonigal (follow her on Twitter here) and her work here:

• Articles and Papers by Jane McGonigal
• Boing! Boing! Video: Emotion, Gaming and Dance
• Video – Explosion of Opportunities offered by Games