Tag Archives: gaming

10 Online Games with Walkthroughs

Here’s a brief description of ten online games that have walkthroughs.  What is a walkthrough?  Text written by a gamer to help another gamer complete the game successfully.  All these games and walthroughs were chosen because they have proved popular with language learners, use language that is not too complicated or dense and are not [...]

Cabal, Cataclysm and Engaging Students

When I walked into my upper-intermediate class of teenagers yesterday, there were two students already there. One of them (A) spoke up about something that was on his mind and that he wanted to tell me (G) and then the other (D) soon joined in. The exchange more or less went like this: A: I [...]

7 ways video games reward the brain

Thanks to @cheimi10 for drawing our attention to this inspiring new TED video by Tom Chatfield, a longtime gamer, the arts and books editor at the UK current-affairs magazine Prospect, and the author of the book Fun Inc. “We’re bringing gameplay into more aspects of our lives, spending countless hours — and real money — [...]

Jane McGonigal TED Talk

Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.

10 Reasons Why Video Games Are Good For The Soul

Here’s a brief description of ten online articles about how video games have been seen to successfully teach or educate for real life skills. 1 Computer games make maths fun in school. An article from the online UK Guardian newsgroup about how a school in nottinghamshire is developing lesson plans and activities for the wii [...]

Hero Machine – Relay Play for Primaries

Learners reproduce the physical appearance of a superhero from reading and relaying a written description. Level: Primary Location: Computer room Language focus:  Has got/ is wearing/ colours/ clothes vocabulary/ physical descriptions/ parts of the body Game: Hero machine Preparation Either play with heromachine  yourself and both write a physical description of the hero you produce [...]

Mystery Of Time And Place (MOTAS)

Level: Intermediate+ Location: Computer room Skills Focus: Live listening Language Focus: It’s something you use to + verb / for + gerund Game: Mystery of Time and Space (MOTAS) This game was probably one of the first point-and-click games I used with a class and many consider it a classic ‘escape the room game’.  It [...]

English Attack – a new fun way of learning English

English Attack is a new way of learning English through videos, games and other online entertainment platforms. Aimed at the 15-35 year-olds and claimed by the founders to be “the world’s first 100% entertainment-focused online resource for improving English language skills”, it is now open for beta testing (you can request an account here) and [...]

10 Search tips to find games online

Here’s a brief description of ten key words to make your online search for games to use more effective.  They should help you find some free, easily accessible, engaging and fun activities for your English Language Learners. 1 “free online games” Learn a bit about boolean search techniques.  An example of one of these is [...]

EVOKE – Edugaming Online

EVOKE is an online Alternate Reality Game (ARG) run by the World Bank Institute and directed by Jane McGonigal.  It begins on March 3 2010 and requires gamers to complete ten game challenges over a ten week period.  If you want to reserve a place then do so now. An EVOKE is defined as an [...]