Skills Focus: Reading

Location: Computer room (multiple computers)

Game: Rizzoli and Isles

If I ever ask teachers if there’s a game that they would want to use in class that’s based on a specific theme the most common answer is crime or a detective based game – so here’s one right here.  There’s even a nice little tutorial at the beginning which your learners can read.  It tells you how to play the game.  Here’s the first one:

 It’s basically a point and click game – you point your mouse on various parts of the screen and click to see if you get some information in your role as a detective.

Note it is a homicide you are investigating so be aware there are some scenes that are inappropriate for a younger audience.  For instance, you have to view the scene of the crime and so you not only get to see the murder victim but you have to collect evidence from the body.  However, if you’d like to judge this game for yourself and see the content of the game you can always take a look at the video walkthrough that is at the bottom of this post.

The screen shots here are all taken from the tutorial at the beginning of the game.  This will not only give you an idea of the level of language in the game but will also give you an idea of what to expect in the game.  Of course, these will all be read by your learners too.

To orientate learners towards the game I took some of the language items from the tutorial and got them to do a little bit of dictionary detective work and find out their meanings.  Basically, it was way to preteaching some of the game’s vocabulary, orientate learners towards the language task (we switched to an online dictionary) and introduce the game itself via the tutorial.

Here’s the vocabulary we did before the game:

There’s a bit of jumping about in this game.  As you solve clues and progress, different locations become available to you.  You start at the crime scene where you collect evidence and talk to the police officers on the crime scene and the building supervisor who’s office is next door.  I say talk but what you in fact do is read what they say, choose from a short list what you say and see where that takes you in the conversation.  A little simple but, hey!  It is reading practice.

While you do move around a few different locations you do have to keep going back to your office.  Your office is not only the place where you collect all your evidence, arrange it and make connections but there’s also the forensic department which you have to go and talk to.

Your notice board (pictured above) is a click away from your desk and you drag and drop the evidence you collect onto it and, as the game progresses, continue to move them around so that they begin to join up.  This in turn gives you more ideas on where to look and impresses your boss so that they can direct you to more locations and more clues.

I have to admit having played the game myself with a class this moving clues around the notice board can prove a little tiresome and it’s a good idea to have the video walkthrough on hand to give learners a little bit of extra help.  Either go and have a look yourself and call out what they need to do next and invite them to go up and have a look at it.  I generally don’t let them have too easy an access to the walkthrough (like on their computer in a different window) as they tend to overuse it.

I think I’ve already mentioned the desk, haven’t I? I also mentioned the bulletin board but reading back on this blog post I’ve called it a notice board.  I made this mistake in class and it did create a little bit of confusion but strangely enough generated some quite spontaneous and natural English.  Basically I got told off by my students, got involved in a semantical arguement which even if I didn’t really win I felt that by getting so much language out of them was a victory in itself.

Notice how ‘bulletin board’ is on my preteach vocabulary list (above).  Yep!  I learnt my lesson and by the time I got round to using the game with another class I was calling it ‘the bulletin board’.  However, I did feel that by skipping over calling it a ‘notice board’ we were missing out so subsequently I threw it back in and, you’ll be glad to hear, feel much better.  I have, rather unfortunately, never had that same level of “discussion” as I had the first time.  I feel rather nostalgic about it now.

Anyway, I’m waffling.  Either play the game yourself or watch the video walkthrough.  Here’s the link to watch it:

Rizzoli and Isles

Location: Connected Classroom

Language Focus: 3rd Conditional

Skills Focus: Reading, Speaking

Game: An Interactive Story

Can you help the girl get home through the woods before it gets dark?

This is a nice little game presented as a moving story book.  That is, it looks like a book upon which the drawings of the characters move.  ok, they move in a limited way but it’s got text for reading practice and it looks kind of cute.  At the beginning of the game you get a bit of the background story and some information on what you have to do.  A few pages into the story the game starts in earnest as the girl meets a strange creature and has to decide how to react.  This is where you the reader get to choose what the character does and in effect dictate the course of the story.  I did this on an interactive whiteboard allowing time on each page for my learners to read the story, discuss any difficult language elements, answer some questions (sort of spontaneous comprehension questions) and finally talk about and reach a consensus on what course of action to take in the story.

Preparation

I played the game first and prepared a set of questions to ask my learners.  Having played the game I realised that by asking certain questions I could ‘guide’ my class to make the choices that would bring out the more interesting elements of the story (it was also the longest version).  Here are those questions:

• What time of year does the story take place?
• Where was she going?
• What was the matter with the strange creature?
• What do you think would have happened if you hadn’t stopped to help?
• Why do you think it’s a bad idea to stop and play in the park?
• What would have happened if you had stopped?
• What does the old man drop?
• What reward does he give her for returning his wallet?
• What would have happened if she’s kept it?
• What does the girl get if she arrives late?
• What does the girl get when she arrives just in time?
• What does the girl do after dinner?

Pre-play

Play

Post Play

1 Christmas facts

Test your learners knowledge of Christmas with these ten questions.  You can either get them to write down their answer and pass it to the next person to mark (before returning it) and then take a class poll on what they think the right answer is.  I always throw out a few bonus points as they come to me.  After the question on the left I asked them to write down the names of the other reindeers, then looked them up online and gave out bonus points for each – it kept the game a little more exciting.

2 Around the World

If you liked the last Christmas Quiz then give this one a go too.  I think the questions are a little harder but if you think your learners are up for it then why not give it a go.  You can always play this quiz straight on the end of the last one if you are looking for a quiz with more than just 10 questions.  Play these two and you’ve doubled the amount of questions to 20.

3 Q’wick Q’westion Q’west

I don’t know how your multiple computer access situation is but when my learners are on a computer in pairs I’m lucky enough to have a large screen connected to a computer at the front of the class.  Learners told me where to click (moving from the reindeer towards the candy cane) and when they saw the question I gave them until the first pair said “next” to find the answer on the internet.  I then took the direction the pair that said next told me to take in the game.  This continued until we had finished.  If you want to be extra sneaky (and give slower ones a little more of a chance) then get learners to write the answer down.  You can then (sneakily) get them to write out questions to the answers they have written down at the end of the game.

4 CBBC Christmas Quizzes

The CBBC website has a few fun christmas quizzes up.  The nice thing about this page is that there are a few quizzes there for learners to work through autonomously on computers.  You can monitor and help with language (or even set an online dictionary for them to use) while learners take each quiz in turn.  Encourage them to make a note of how many points they score in each so that you can declare a winner at the end of the activity.

5 IWB Christmas Quiz

A downloadable interactive PowerPoint Quiz for Christmas from the people at tes. No searching questions here – just 15 multiple choice questions based around Santa, The Nativity and Traditions. Click on the correct answer and you’ll get a ‘Well Done’, but click on the incorrect answer and you’ll get a ‘Try Again’ for the opportunity to go back and have another go.

6 DIY Quizzes

Well sometimes it’s best just to do your own quiz so you can grade the language, add your own images and effects or simply so that it can be saved on a network computer for other teachers to use.  If this is the case then check out this website for a large list of Christmas questions and answers.  The site invites you to cut and paste but I find it’s a good idea to check their spelling and grade some of the language there for your own purposes.

7 More Merry Christmas Resources

This site has a mix of all the above.  There are interactive quizzes, ideas for questions with answers and explanations as well as video quizzes with audio.  It’s a bit like going to Santa’s grotto and having a lucky dip grab – you might be lucky and find something you really like here.

 8  Christmas Carols

If you are feeling extra adventurous then one idea might be to have a Christmas quiz that goes with Christmas Carols.  This quiz focusses on just that.  What would be great now is if you can find all these carols online on a video sharing site and play them while the question is up there.  Hey Presto!  You have a listening and reading activity.  Would be a great one to do but sadly I have two more ideas to come up with for this post so I’ll leave this one for you.

9 Triviapark Christmas Quiz

If you are not feeling so inspired to make your own Christmas Quizzes and you are simply looking for more to use in the connected classroom then here’s a nice little website.  There’s a novice level quiz as well as a regular level quiz, which is a little trickier, and also a more challenging expert level.  It’s worth making a note of the website too as there are a load of quizzes on all sorts of topics here.

10 PowerPoint Quizzes

There is some demand for downloadable PowerPoint quizzes that have already been made for you.  Here are some more.  A word of warning though – these have not been made with English language learners in mind so a little tweeking here and there may be needed.  Good luck!

Location: Computer room

Skills Focus: Reading

Game: Tanooky Tracks

A Tanooky is a playful but mischievous spirit that likes to possess objects that most resemble its unique personality the most.  In this game you have to find and collect the objects associated with each of the 12 Tanookies in order to find them.  Why?  Because they are getting up to too much mischief.  If you can find them you are helping the occupants of the house, who are being terrorised by the Tanooky presence in their home, get rid of them (see left).

Luckily in the game there is a nice little hint book (see below) that tells you about each Tanooky and points you in the right direction as well as clues as to what objects to look for.   You can see where to click to read the hint book at the bottom of the house on the left.  You can click on this at any point while you are playing the game.  The clues and hints on each Tanooky consists of a riddle and some visual puzzles to mix it up a little.  If you look at the back of this book there are even more hints in case you are really stuck.

The nice thing about this game is that not only is it a visually attractive game with written text to support it but you can also choose to start with which ever Tanooky you like (of course, your learners don’t get to choose the order – you do!). That is, you can deal with them in any particular order.  I like this because sometimes when you have lots of learners playing the same game they can cheat by asking for / giving help using their own native language.  Because this game allows the teacher to dictate the order in which they take down each Tanooky.  Groups of learners will generally be playing the game at a different point.

The teacher can use a walkthrough as they monitor to ask learners guiding questions and help them solve the trickier riddles in the hint book.  Digital Play provides you here with links to the game, the walkthrough and a worksheet.  The latter is for the  learners which gives both extra help (if they need it) on solving the riddles and sets the order for each group to play the game.

Here’s the lesson plan:

Preparation

Print off a copy of the walkthrough and worksheet.  Cut the worksheet cards out (there’s a double copy in case groups overlap and need to look for the same Tanooky).

Pre-Play

1. Hangman ‘Tanooky’.  Ask them what this means.  They won’t know so read them the explanation from the first line of this blog.  Tell them a bit about the game too if you like.
2. Divide the class into 3, 4, 6 0r 12 groups depending on how you will organise them on the computers.  Deal the cut up worksheet equally amongst the groups.  Tell the groups to read the pieces of paper and make notes in their notebooks.  Their notes should include the name of the the spirit and any answers they might like to guess at.
3. Collect back all the cut up worksheet cards.
4. Go to the computer room.  Learners take their notes with them.

Play

1. Learners find the game online and play the tutorial.
2. They then take one of the worksheet cards and find that Tanooky spirit in the game.
3. When they have solved that worksheet card they can get a different worksheet card.
4. When one group has found all the tanooky spirits stop the game.

Post Play

1. If learners didn’t finish the game they can complete it at home.  The game, walkthrough and worksheet can all be found here.
2. They can look at the house in the game and invent their own tanooky spirit.  They describe it and explain what objects it’s connected to, how to find it and write a riddle.

If you can think of any other spin off activities you could do with this game then please feel free to tell us all about it in comments.

1  Make Your Monster

In a computer room get young learners (7 – 9 yrs) to make their own monsters and write the description for their monster. e.g.

My monster has got green ears and green hands.  He’s got a square blue body.  He’s got red eyes, a big grey nose and sharp yellow teeth.

Collect their descriptions in and correct them.  If you can save their monsters (screen capture) too that’s great.  Then next class you can hand out the descriptions randomly to other students (making sure no-one gets the one they wrote) and students reproduce the monster from the description.  Compare with the original monster picture if possible.

2  Goose Bumps

Again in a computer room with young learners (7 – 9 yrs), another way to use the language from the previous activity is to make a monster yourself, write out the description for it and dictate it to your learners.  They have to listen and reproduce the monster you are describing. e.g.

He’s got an orange head. He’s wearing a grey suit with a red bow tie.  He’s got big strong green arms.  He’s got very short legs and they are yellow.  He’s very ugly.

Check to see if any of the student’s monsters are different and ask students if they can say what is wrong using the target language.  Praise them if they get it right.

3 Make a Monster

Drag the body parts on the left onto the create area and manipulate each part with the controls below.  The controls here are a little more complicated and the game a little more complex so I use this game with older learners (9 – 11 yrs).  You can use the game to stimulate a writing a description activity.  Language can be a little more complicated and have a greater range. e.g.

My monster likes eating small children.  He doesn’t like tidying his room and on Saturdays he likes to watch horror films.  He sleeps in the day and goes out at night to scare people.

If you can’t save the monster using screen capture then get your learners to copy the monster into their notebooks.  Give them 5-10 minutes to do this copying from the computer screen.  they can colour it in or add other details at home.

4 Halloween Monster

Play the game yourself and write/ type it out and print a single copy of the description out.  Then go to the computer room and ask students to sit in pairs.  direct them to the website and tell them they have to make this picture and show them the printed description.  Put the description on a wall (blu-tac) and tell one student in the pair they have to come up, read and go and tell their partner the description.  When they can’t remember any more they have to come back and read the next part and go back to their partner and repeat.  After 5 minutes the pair change roles.  Here’s an example of a description:

There is a brown path leading to a very tall scary house.  There are five lights on in the house.  The monster is on the right of the house. He’s standing to the right of the path in the middle.  He’s got a pumpkin’s head.  He’s got two grey arms that are reaching out towards the path.  He’s wearing some very old brown trousers and old brown shoes.

When they’ve finished they can look at other pairs’ monsters and spot any differences.

5 Zombie Creator

This is good for a bit of collaborative gaming and speaking in a connected classroom.  Display the game on a central screen and choose the create-a-scene option.  Then encourage learners to dictate to you what to put in the scene.  You input language as it’s needed and encourage learners to repeat the language.  There is some quite select language that comes up so it may help to make a note of the language you expect to elicit and for learners to use. e.g. (see image on the left)

The skulls are flashing.           There is a ghost on the left.          They are in a wood with a moon.           There is a birthday cake.

The zombie on the left is coming out of the ground

As a follow up put learners in teams and they have to write down the scene remembering as much of the language as possible.  Encourage them to ask you how to spell words.

6 Halloween Fright Site

If you want a template for a halloween card then use this site.  There are a few designs using various costumes associated with halloween (skeleton, ghost, and a witch) along with a selection of different backgrounds.  You can choose to have the design coloured in by default or left in black or white.  Once learners have a finished design they can print it off.

• If it’s in black and white do a collaborative open class colouring in dictation.

• If you print off coloured in designs then get your learners to write a halloween recipe, story or poem.

7 Trick or Treat Dress Up

8 Ghost Dress Up

9 Halloween Dress Up

This computer room relay dictation activity has a lesson plan for it posted on this blog already.  Just click on the link or picture to read all about it.  The language covered includes:

has got / is wearing

colour / clothes/ parts of the body

10 Funny Halloween

 Learners open up two internet explorer pages.  On the first one they have 5 minutes to create their character.  When the time limit is up pair two computers together.  Computer A goes to their second internet explorer page which is set to the beginning of the game. Computer B describes their character for Computer A to listen to and reproduce.  When they have finished they should compare and discuss the differences and count them up.  They then repeat but swap roles.  At the end decide which of the pair had the least differences.  Then decide which team in the whole class had the least differences.  Ask them if this is the result of them being good listeners or the others being the best describers.

10 more days to Halloween!

Location:  Computer Room

Langauge: Giving advice – 2nd conditional/ should

Skills focus:  Reading/ Speaking

Game:  The Power of Research

Welcome to a game where your learners will get the chance to live a little of the hectic life of a hospital doctor.  Most of the language in this game is quite low level but the vocabulary tends to be quite specialised.  I’d recommend that your learners have a good online dictionary to hand when they play this.

The tool bars shown in the screen shot above: patients status (top), possible doctor actions (left), hospital & doctor status (bottom).  This may all look a little complicated but the part of the fun of playing the game is learning to play the game.

Preparation

Write some illnesses onto post-it notes.  I used some illnesses that came up in the game and they included heart attack, flu, influenza, medium fracture, complicated fracture and then a mix of basic illnesses (which aren’t in the game) such as a cold, tooth ache, back ache, a cut etc.  This is a good opportunity to pre-teach some of the illness vocabulary that comes up in the game.

Preplay

Tell learners you are going to put an illness (post it) on each of their heads.  They have to go round and look at their colleagues illnesses and offer advice.  By listening to the advice they can guess their illness.  When they guess their illness they can take their post-it notes off and go and give advice to others.  When everyone has guessed each others illnesses they can sit down.

Tell learners that they are going to play a computer game together.  In the game they are a doctor in a hospital and they will have to deal with patients.  As they play they should discuss their actions and give advice to each other on what they should do.

Play

Learners play the game in pairs and may use an online dictionary if they want.

Monitor and help with any language problems that arise and encourage learners to discuss their game progress while giving advice on what to do next.

Ask learners questions such as:

“What patients have you dealt with today?”

“What did you advise?”

“Where have you been in the hospital?”

“Has the game advised you to do anything?”

“What’s the best/ worst advice you’ve heard so far?”

Post Play

Reflect with a new partner on how they ‘should’ have played the game. i.e. could they have done it better (the answer is usually ‘yes’).

Discuss in open class what illnesses they dealt with and how.  If anyone else in the class can interrupt with advice then ask them to raise their hand and wait for you to call on them.

Location: Computer room

Skills focus: Reading.

Game: My American Farm

The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture has commissioned a set of games aimed at teaching agricultural literacy.  The selection of games test players on topics as diverse as geography, maths, ingredients to recipes and even the best type of machinery to mow the grass at St. Andrew’s golf course in Scotland.

What I like about the games here is that there is extensive use of language.  Like many online quizzes you get asked a question and you are tested on whether you know a select item of vocabulary.  This goes one step further and provides additional clues.  Take for example the Equipment Engineer.  I chose this one because I was doubtfulwhether my learners would benefit from expanding their knowledge of farm engineering equipment.  However, the language clues contained useful language and valid reading skills practice and avoided technical and specialised vocabulary.  You read the clue, look through the equipment and click on one to read a description of it, then drag it onto the golf green if you think you have found the right piece of machinery. You get feedback on your progress on the left hand side with each ‘cog’ turning gold each time you complete a quest.  Complete three of the quests and you earn a stamp in your passport.

The passport is the the thing I liked the most, though admittably it is the element that is the least digital of all.  You download and print off the passport.  Then with a pair of scissors and some glue you put it together and then when you play any of the games and complete one of the challenges you earn a stamp in your passport (stamp, unfortunately, not included).  This is great as it provided an extra incentive for learners to play the games and even conduct a little (cheating) practice at home.  Luckily, I have a stamp with a rather comical sheep on it (looks a lot like the sheep in Wallace and Gromitt the wrong trousers) and along with my signature over the top (plus the name of the game) means that I can control the game play.  I even offer my hand at doodles around the sheep if a player completes a game a number of times.

But what about the games?  Are they all good?  Well, not all of them but judge the ones below for yourself:

AG Across America Asks questions about aspects of geography and you have to click on a US state the question infers.  Get the question right and you also get given a fact and you learn about agriculture in the states

Amazing Grains Read the question and make a choice on your answer from the two options.  You have a 50/ 50 chance of getting the maths focussed quiz right.

Equipment Engineer we’ve explained already above.

Farmers Market Challenge Choose a market topic (flowers, protein, eggs, fruits, nuts, veggies or cheese) and answer solve maths based puzzles.

Finders Keepers Choose a food group (grains, protein, dairy, vegetables, fruits or physical activity) then read the challenge to find, say healthy physical activities and then drag the right floating images into the boxes.

Let’s make Something Tasty Read the recipe clues and then find the missing ingredients in the word search to complete the recipe instructions.

Little Ag Me Choose a job from the agricultural industry (food chemist, large animal vet, logger, plant scientist, diesel mechanic, produce buyer or environmental engineer) and answer questions about it.  The questions are supported by images so it’s possible to deduce meaning from even some of the more difficult language.

Spin ‘n Solve Spin a wheel to decide your prize and then read a clue to a word before guessing which letters may be part of that word.  If you’ve ever seen the Tv game show ‘spin the wheel’ then you have a good idea how to play this game.

That’s Life Learn about the life cycle of various things (soy, cotton, pumpkin, horse or paper).  There’s actually not a lot of language in this game but I was using a course book that had exercises around this topic.  Learners played this game and then used the language in the book to write about the life cycle in the game.

What’s in The World a nice geography test where you read clues and look at pictures in order to identify a country.  Get the answer right and you get a ‘fun fact’.

Wild Water Adventures Choose an adventure (alpine skiing, ride the rapids, crazy canoe course or olympic swim trials) and practice your reading comprehension skills.  Each adventure has a different story.  Read the story and answer comprehension questions.

There were a few other games on the site but the level of language content was low.  Having said that they are educational so they could be offered as ‘fun’ breaks from English.  I just wouldn’t encourage too much play on them other than to get the stamp in their passport.  Speaking of passports I need to check mine – it’s my summer holiday soon!

And on that note folks Digital Play will be on holiday for the summer.

We’ll be back in September.

Wishing you all a relaxing summer!

Location: Computer room

Skills focus: reading and writing.

Language Focus: 3rd Conditional

Game: A Zombie Story

If you ever played any of the fighting fantasy choose your own adventure books (a single-player adventure game book) then you might like to introduce learners to the concept too.  If you are unfamiliar with them then playing the game above gives you a rudimentary idea of their form.  You read a story, at some point made a decision and then turned to a page that the particular decision you made was linked to and then continued the story.  Incidentally, this activity is graded upper-intermediate because of the high level of language in the game.  There’s no reason why the later activities could not be adapted to lower levels.

Preplay

1. Tell the class they are going to play a game called ‘A Zombie Story’ that has 8 possible endings.
2. Ask them to draw 8 columns and two rows and dictate the name of each ending so learners have this in their note books:

4.  Below that get them to reproduce this:

Play the game on a computer in the classroom and as you play get learners to fill in the ‘What do you do?’, ‘What happens?’ and ‘Useful Language’ categories until you reach an ending.  Learners can then tick the box below the name of the ending.

Play

If you’ve followed the steps above your learners are now orientated towards the language task and you can take them to the computer room.

1. Get learners to play the game and find the 8 possible endings.  They should tick the boxes as they finish them.
2. They then choose the best ending and play again but take notes on the actions (what they do) and their consequences (what happens) as well as useful language
3. Monitor and help with difficult language and ensure they are making notes on ‘useful language’.
4. Fast finishers should sit behind a player and give oral instructions on how to find the missing endings for the player.

Post Play

Choose your own post activity:

• Now that learners have a familiarity with the various story lines and they have chosen one as ‘their story’ you can guide them to writing third conditional sentences.  For example:

If I hadn’t / had got out bed, I would/ wouldn’t have . . . .

If I had slept more, I would/ wouldn’t have . . . .

• Learners create your own story like the one you have played. They should remember to give options in your story with different choices.  The best way to do this is to write each part of the story on a separate piece of paper with the title of the decision made last at the top.  Next class they can read their story to another who decides on a course of action until they reach the end of the story.
• Learners imagine they find another survivor. They think about would you say to them and then and then find someone with a different story and tell them their stories.

Location: Computerroom

Language skills: Reading

Topic: The British electoral process

Game: MP for a Week

This is a great activity for an advanced group of English language learners with not only lots of reading practice but also the opportunity to learn a little about the political process that a British MP has to face each day of the week.  The first step is to choose your name, whether you are male or female and, of course, you take a side choosing either to be part of the governing party or the opposition party.  You then start your week on monday at 9:00 a.m and immediately the minutes start ticking by as if they were seconds.

The game is essentially a whole series of tasks of which there are simply too many to keep up with.  This is all part of the game.  The idea that MPs have too much to do and too little time to do it is implicit within the game.  From the offset you have to prioritize what you have to deal with, how you deal with them and what to let slip by.  Of course, throughout the game each decision you take is reflected in the polls.  Is this stressful?  Most probably but in a game context pressure and stress seems all part of the fun and as long as tasks you are on are doable it’s the kind of game play that is just what an advanced language learning class is looking for.

From the start there are a number of issues that you need to consider tackling on a range of topics.  Choose to deal with what you consider the most important issues and let what you choose to tackle and how you tackle it be the order of the day.  Be careful though as your decisions will affect your running in the opinion polls.  You get to see your progress here

regularly.  In regular progress updates you see how your party’s reputation is faring, what your voter support base is like and how your media profile is bearing up.

The number of tasks in this game just keep on piling up but in a way that justkeeps the game play engaging and challenging.  For instance, you may have to set up committees and select various members from your constituency to sit on a panel to ask your party’s MPs questions. Read your constituents profiles, select who you want and then generate a report on the event.  Your success at this will in turn be reflected in the polls.

There are also various debates that you can attend that call for speeches.  Speeches here consist of five short sound bites.  You get to review a selection of short extracts that could all be chosen to form part of a possible speech you are going to make. You edit them by placing a limited number in a specific order ranging from the opening of your speech on through the various points you want to make to finally  your closing comments. You then get to listen to the finished speech that you have cut and pasted together.

The things you need to do seem to go on and on.  There are seemingly endless meetings to attend.  Of course, it is up to you whether you attend or decline.  What is unavoidable is your mobile phone.  Besides the occasional call there always seems to be a huge backlog of messages waiting for you to answer.  As mentioned earlier there are too many for you to deal with.  As I mentioned earlier, rather than frustrate this just leads more to the feeling that you need to play harder.  That is, there is a lot of work to do but it’s kind of fun to be under this amount of pressure.  Never has reading and answering your text messages seemed so busily enjoyable.

Phew!  A lot to do.  Did I also mention that?  Besides the invaluable reading skills practice here there is also the opportunity to learn about various aspects of the British electoral and political system.  They even make this task quite overt by posing questions in a hints optionand then directing you to look for the answers.  They in turn can be found within concise easy to understand video interviews with take place with real world politicians.

With all that’s been mentioned so far you would have thought there was little or no time time to attend a parliamentary Question time.  Attend question time you should though, and decide on where you stand and who you support on a number of issues.

It’s not all about just reading or listening to text either.  There are a few moments where more ‘game’ like moments drop in.  There is one moment where you have to catch the eye of the speaker by ‘waggling’ your mouse around the screen.  Move the mouse fast enough and in the right place and you might just get noticed.  Too slow and you will be left to last.

There are of course game instructions but I found that getting learners to jump straight in meant they learnt how to play as they played.  They also took about 25 minutes to progress from between a day to a few days (one pair were on Tuesday and another reached Thursday).  That’s out of a whole week that it they are MP for.  For this reason look at this activity taking anywhere between 45 minutes to an hour.  Just because your learners are engaged don’t presume to sit back and take it easy either.  While my learners were kept busy being MPs I was kept busy too.  My time was taken up going round asking questions about what they thought of the game, how they thought they were doing, what they were doing at that moment, whether there were any questions about the language and whether the game was changing their perceptions of what it was to be an MP for a week.  Was it fun being an ‘MP for a week’?  Not as fun in real life as the game we were all sure.

*Oops! 1 and 2 are the wrong way round!*

As the movie franchise is on its 4th release we’ve decided to give you some ideas on how to use the game with the 4 skills of writing, reading, listening and speaking.

Writing

Use a walkthrough to play the game yourself on a screen in a connected classroom.  Ask learners to predict what you have to do or identify language elements (such as vocabulary) as you play but use the walkthrough to move the activity forward.  At intervals pause the game and ask learners to write the storyline as it unfolds.  To encourage some range and complexity of language you could either brainstorm narrative language elements onto the board or list them yourself.  Here’s one I prepared earlier:

1. Tenses (past simple, past continuous and past perfect)
2. Sequencers (First of all, after that, then, etc)
3. Direct & reported speech
4. Grammar (adverbs, adjectives, phrasal verbs etc)
5. Typical pirate vocabulary (galleon, skull & crossbones, cutlass, deck, mast, flag, desert island etc)

Encourage learners to use the list regularly tin their writing.

Reading

Learners open three internet explorer windows.

1. They play the game
2. They read the walkthrough
3. They use an online dictionary.

Of course, if you have copies of learner produced stories from the game from say a different class then there is no reason why you can’t use these with another class playing the game.  If they are reading the story they can get a good idea of how to play the game.  This in fact generates a lot of discussion as they translate the story into actions within the game so encourage speaking in English as much as possible.

Listening

There are a number of ways to do this:

Pairs or group dictation – Print off a copy of a walkthrough for each computer in the computer room.  In the computer room put learners in pairs.  One sits at the computer and plays the game while the other sits behind them with the walkthrough.  The learner with the walkthrough dictates to the gamer (in their own words if possible) how to progress in the game.  The gamer listens and plays the game.  If computer room dynamics means that there are more than two to a computer set up a ‘chinese whisper’ activity with one learner at the computer and learners sitting directly behind in a line.  The last learner in the line has the walkthrough and whispers it to the learner in front.  The instructions then get relayed down the line to the gamer.  Whichever one you choose to do make sure to get learners to change positions regularly so they all have a chance to play the game.

Relay dictation - Place a copy of the walkthrough on thw wall and get learners to take it in turns to read the walkthrough and then return to their partner/ group and dictate how to play the game.  Get learners to swap roles (gamer and dictator) every 5 minutes or so).

Teacher dictation – With a walkthrough in your hand dictate to your learners how to progress in the game.  Encourage them to describe what they can see on their screens as you monitor to encourage peer help.  Also some of the language may be new to your learners so encourage them to ask you for definitions.

Speaking

Play the game in a connected classroom using a walkthrough.  Learners work in groups to discuss what happens next in the game and a spokesperson reports their conclusions to the class.  The class then votes on the best idea and you tell them how close their ideas are to the game storyline.  Give clues so they can guess what happens next if they are off the mark by referring to the walkthrough and then move the game on further and repeat.  For lower levels they can direct you to vocabulary items on the screen to click on. Higher levels can describe what to do on the screen while the highest levels can predict what events in the story happens next.

You can find links to each game and their walkthroughs on a single page by clicking on the link below:

The Ballad of Kinetto

Let us know how you get on by posting a comment.