Overview

What is a game? Key concepts

• A game is a system with rules, some sort of challenge, feedback of some sort, interaction, fun, and often an emotional response. 

• “Hard fun” challenges learners to think, such as in Scrabble or chess. It is still fun.

• Start with the learning objectives, then use the game to achieve them. 

• Think about Bloom’s Taxonomy, and make sure classroom games are at different levels, from remembering to creativity

• Team play lets games be collaborative and often more fun than individual competition – not everyone likes to complete, but everyone likes to win.

• Learner-created games build autonomy, ownership, and motivation.

Why use games for English language teaching?

• For teachers, games can be education disguised as entertainment (stealth education).

• For students, they're fun and engaging.

• For young people, educational games and gaming can resemble the tools and toys they enjoy - social interaction, gaming, make-believe worlds.

• On this site, it's games of different kinds that can be used in language teaching.

We will explore

• • What is a game?

  • Games for learning

    • Icebreaker

    • Board games + crosswords

    • Online skill-building games – adventure, games for change

    • Task-based games 

  • Create your own games

    • Offline and online, PPT based, create your own adventure

    • Customizable games

    • Role of the learner

  • Game elements from gamification

    • Team play (“community collaboration”) and competition (“player vs. player”).

    • Time constraints (“countdown”).

    • Feedback

    • Fun (including "hard fun")

    • Ownership 

    • Points, badges, and levels

    • “Epic meaning”

    • Everyday examples

      • Hangman in pairs – Gamify: Countdown, community collaboration

      • Crossword puzzle – Gamify: countdown, community collaboration, points, achievement

      • Memorizing vocabulary for a weekly quiz –Gamify: teamwork, challenge, points with flashcards, progress on a chart

      • Highlighting the transition words in a reading – Gamify: teamwork, challenge, points, achievement

      • Doing a workbook exercise about the past tense – Gamify: countdown, teamwork, challenge, points, achievement; ownership if they make their own questions

The key is to tie the game to the language goal and the curriculum. Most games are best played with others so that there is interaction with others and language use as part of playing the game.

See below and on the next two pages for resources

• 2024 Games and Gamification resources handout - games listed by type/use

• 2024 Kyiv Games and Gsmification PPT (PDF format)

• 2021 Games and Gamification resources handout - games listed by skill area

• 2020 Nicaragua workshop PPT in PDF format

Last updated 21 May 2024 by D. Healey.