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

This 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.

Level: Upper intermediate

Location: Connected classroom/ Home

Language focus:  Vocabulary of games / Formal language in an application letter

Skills Practice: Listening / Reading / Writing

Maybe you have looked at formal language for writing a job application letter and you would like to set a writing task but the post in the coursebook doesn’t sound very interesting or stimulating.  Being a Game Tester might appeal to your learners and also give you some insight into how involved they are with gaming.

Preparation

• Make some Bingo cards by using tables (3 by 3) in a word document.  Print enough copies for each learner in your class.  Alternatively get them to draw one in their notebooks.
• Print off a copy of the Kygra Game Tester job advert.

Pre-watching task

1. Write ‘Game Tester’ on the board and ask your learners what this job might involve.  Answer – Playing video games.
2. Tell them they are going to watch a short News report on Game Testers and you want them to predict what words they will hear.
3. Hand out the Bingo cards and tell your learners to write their word predictions down (I told my class nouns only to prevent them writing a, and as well as other high frequency words).
4. The rules are that if a learner finishes their card they raise their hand and you collect their card (try not to let the activity interupt the video watching).
5. Play the video

Reading task

Games Tester Job

1. Tell your learners they are going to read a job advert to be a Games Tester.  In pairs they brainstorm qualities they think would be good for a Game Tester to have.
2. They read the advert to see if any of the qualities they mentioned are mentioned in the advert.
3. Check learners understand all the language in the job advert before asking them to highlight interesting language elements (game vocabulary, areas they have abilities or experience in, etc).

Writing task

1. Learners make notes on what language they will use (including formal letter language from the coursebook).
2. Learners then write their job application letter out either in class or for homework.

Post Activity

Learners read a selection of job application letters and decide which three would be asked to come to a job interview.  Ask them to explain their reasons.

Location: Home computer

Topic: Worlds domination

Skills Focus: Writing

Game: Astro Empires

Astro Empires is a purely text based game.  Look on the left at the screenshot and what you see is pretty much what you get.  It’s not at all the kind of special effects driven game that dominates the market at the moment yet over 40,000 players are registered to the site.

What is Astro Empires?

Astro Empires is what is called a “more peg” or a massively multiplayer online role playing game or MMORPG.  You start off on a single planet with very little resources and you have to build up an empire.  You start by building metal refineries.  Once you’ve built one of them you now have metal to start constructing other buildings.  Each different building you construct opens up new buildings and new technologies that you can build and develop.  As your level gets higher you get more powerful but it takes longer and costs more credits to build things.  When you get to a high enough technology you can build a space fleet and start to expand to other planets but BEWARE! There are other players out there too so you need to join a guild in order to make friends, get a little help and protection as well as finding a common purpose in the game.

How did I hear of it?

Believe it or not one of my learners got me into it.  A teen lad who used to arrive late to my class, cause trouble to attract attention and generally treated class time as anything but an English class.  One day after we had been edugaming in the computer room he came up and spoke to me.  This was unusual not only because it was time to go home but also because he was talking to me in English – at a time he’d usually have been out the door, down the hill and be waiting at the bus stop to go home.  I expressed my surprise at this and really wanted to know what was behind this miracle.  He wanted to show me a game he was into.  The game he showed me was Astro Empires.  It wasn’t a great surprise he was into an online game – he’s a digital native don’t you know.  It wasn’t even a great surprise he was into a game that involved empire expansion, space battles and worlds colliding though I would have pegged him more as an ‘online football manager‘ kinda guy.  Instead my surprise came from the fact that there were no gleaming ships with evil looking weaponry, no explosions and no nothing apart from text.  Even more amazing was that he communicated extensively with other players on one of the 5 notice boards IN ENGLISH!

How much English is produced?

As the screenshot above shows it is text, text, text.  There are 5 boards by which players give or receive information from the rest of their guild members (think team) about strategy, trade routes, combat reports, general announcements from the guild leaders and a final board for general chit chat.  There are also forums where you can get strategy guides, start up guides, advice, help and general support in the game.  I think my troublesome learner was getting through more English than there was in the coursebook and with none of the pretty pictures.  I was and still am a little in awe of that.  I didn’t just want to get on board to see what all the fuss was about but also I saw that he’d attempted a third condition (something about if he’d kept an eye on the enemy base he would have noticed a build up of his fleet and done something about it but in intermediatese) and I reckoned I could get in there a tweek language a little.

How did I start?

I became an apprentice to my learner.  I joined the same galaxy he was in (there are a few non connected galaxies you can join) told him where I was, joined his guild and generally listened to him tell me what to do.  I wasn’t too happy when he attacked me and raided my resources but as soon as he learnt his aggression was index linked to the amount of homework he’d get in my class we soon settled down to a peaceful co-existence.  I could find the start up guides but I just told him I didn’t have time for all that and just threw questions at him to which a lot he replied.  I found ways to model more complex structures in situations I found myself in and was pleased to note that he was soon reporting to fellow players with a much more accurate use of conditionals.  My work here was done.

The end?

Ironically enough my learner played the game for another year and then sort of drifted out of the game.  He probably lost interest and found other more interesting teen things to do.  I’m relieved to say that my tutelage in English didn’t put him off.  If anything he came out a bit more in class and even went as far as to recruit two more of his friends into the game.  No doubt to check out the novelty of their teacher playing their online game.  Once out of the game and having completed a year course with me some 6 months previously I lost touch with him and who knows whether he’s conquering galaxies now.  Maybe he became a lawyer or something (that’s what he wanted to be).

New Beginnings?

If I ever do get the chance I start the game up with other learners especially if they already have an interest in online games.  Intensive courses have proved good recruiting grounds and I set down a few rules:

A disadvantage of this game is that to stop multiple accounts being created the designers of the game have made it difficult to play the game all in one place.  Maybe a good thing but it means game play takes place in the gamers own time and in their own homes.  But get this – it’s homework they enjoy, actively use and struggle to master.  Any way to get them writing in English, eh?

Level:  Advanced / Proficiency

Location: Computer room / homework

Language skill: Reading

The Game:  Avalon is a text based role playing fantasy adventure game based on Dungeons and dragons, the stories of Tolkien and the Ancient Greek myths.  You read the story and make choices in the fantasy world as they are made available to you (e.g. how to interact with in-game characters, what directions to go in, which quests to take).  The choices you make will effect how the story unfolds and how your game character develops.  An example of an Avalon screenshot is on the right here.  You have the main body of text, a tool bar on the right and a blue window at the bottom to type in your choices/ instructions and interactions with the in game characters.

Preparation

Ask your students to access Avalon home page outside of class time.

They will have to think of a fictional name for their character and a password to be able to save their progress and access their game elsewhere and at a later date.

Activity

Once your learners have created their characters you can use this game in a number of ways:

1 A quiet reading activity – Sometimes computer room activities can seem like too much work and too little quiet time.  Use the computer room as an opportunity for learners to ‘play’ the game while having you on hand to answer any language queries.

2 A fast finishers activity.  Sometimes learners may finish a computer room activity earlier than their class mates.  Setting aAvalon as a reading task means that they do not disrupt the computer room activity for others and they are also getting reading skills practice.

3 Online dictionary work – the Avalon text contains a lot of examples of language used for dramatic effect.  As a result a lot of vocabulary may be unfamiliar to your learners.  Learners can read the text with the help of an online dictionary to help them reach a deeper understanding of the text.

4 Recording language – Learners can record useful language themselves making a note of the word(s), marking the stress, the word form (adjective, verb, noun etc), example sentences using the new word(s), and a definition in English.

5 Recorded language activities – Any language that has been recorded in the game can be used in classroom activities such as word formation (recording other forms of the recorded word(s) i.e. its verb form, noun form, adverb form etc)

6 Diary keeping/ report making – Learners can keep a diary or make reports (possibly posted on a class blog) of the choices, direction and progress they have made in the game.  This is helpful if learners wish to exchange help, tips, advice and game observations.

7 Presentation – Learners can give class presentations on their in game progress using any game notes they have made.  This can serve to help others, or gain help from others and makes the reading experience more interactive, interesting and integrated.

8 Periphery reading – There are a number of online sites that offer information about the game including a wiki which includes links to lists of in-game creatures, characters, places, potions etc, as well as other resources.