It is believed that playing can be a very effective method to learn, especially when dealing with children and teenagers. However, it is important to highlight that there are two approaches that can be mistaken since they both sound very similiar but, in fact, they are different: Game-based learning and Gamification.

One the one hand, game-base learning is using an existing game and modify it in order to fulfill the requirements of the actvitiy you are cattying out, for example: using the trivial board to practice the vocabulary learn throughout the whole term. You play to this game during a session and you everybody learn in a interactive way. On the other hand, gamification is about creating a new game, an entire universe with a narrative story to introduce students in the game, you can use gamification during the term or during a didactic unit to help students learn the content. Students will receive points that they will be able to exchange for different thing such us eating a candy in class or be able to choose a film to see at the end of the term.

Now, I will give you a little example of gamification, I will introduce the narrative story and some card the game will have so you can have a broad idea of the game:

As you can see, the classroom is going to be The Seven Kingdoms, and students will be divided into 5 famous and poweful families. In order to become the King, families must fight one against other to collect the 7 Magical Obect that will give them the crown. To get those magical object, they will need to master their knowledge about the different verbs in Past Simple, both regular and irregular. Some cards will have extra points they can exchange for little rewards, and others card will take from them all they have achieved. Now, I will show you some cards: