A serious game: The Migrant Trail

 

The Migrant Trail based on the background that every year the undocumented Mexicans steal into the U.S. In the game, you can play as a migrant or a patrol. You can see everyone has his/her own story and motivations. The game is telling us "Although the migrants have many reasons to do that, they should always respect the law".

I played every individual on both side. There are nine migrants and three patrols. As a migrant, I need to head north to the pickup before I run out of supplies and I must avoid getting caught by the patrols. The group will encounter many difficulties which are the real scenarios for the migrants. I only made it once among nine characters. The patrol side is much easier. All you need to do is follow the evidence the migrants left and you will catch them eventually.

Maryland Content Standards for Adult ESL/ESOL says that high intermediate ESL/ESOL learners will be able to read simple descriptions and narratives on authentic topics; follow specific written directions/instructions to perform an activity; identify fact and opinion in a text. Therefore, the learning objectives for high intermediate learners should be follow the instructions and understand the culture background.

 

There are lots of readings in the game. To be honest, if the students do not read the introductions and instructions, they are missing a valuable part of the game. The readings provide the basic information of the whole event. The students would know where is Mexico, Sonoran desert, and Arizona. What would the migrants do before they go into the desert? What is their motivations? The game provide adequate characters to let the player experience the migrants' feelings and the patrols' attitude. The player would feel the desperate of the migrants. When a group member twist his/her ankle or get sick on the way, s/he will be left behind. It is really hard to avoid the patrols in the game. Although a migrant once arrived at the pickup, it says the character now lives in fear that he could be deported at any time. I feel really sad about that. If the player do not pay attention at the readings, s/he would not have the strong feeling of the issue.

 

 

The teacher's job is to make sure the students have read the introductions carefully. For me, I will ask some questions to help they understand the readings better. For example, "What is the desert the migrants have to cross?" "How much the migrants have to pay for the party?" "How many found bodies or skeletons each year?" In addition, I will let them share their opinions of the game with their group members. Ask them "Do you agree with the Patrol C that the migrants should do it in a right way?" "What would you do if you tried VISA but failed? Would you risk your life in the desert?" By playing and discussing the game, students will have a better understanding of the issue.

 

 

Assessment: The assessment will be paper work. The teacher print out another migrant's file in the game that they did not read before, followed a few questions about the main idea and details in the reading. And then ask them to write a brief essay to argue with the migrant pretending they are a patroller.

A casual game: Sound Factory

In Sound Factory you play a role of a bored worker who wants to please his co-workers by making music from the old factory machinery. You need to unlock all the instruments in the limited time, in the meanwhile, you have to finish the work quota and turn off all the items when the boss is coming. I played the little game over ten times but stuck by the level three since it has a bug. My co-worker's satisfaction degree just stopped after the boss came and gone. I could not unlock items if they were not happy. Anyway, students would love to get involved in the game since creating music is really interesting, especially when they can keep unlocking amazing instruments. No matter you are an adult or a child, you will have much fun.

In the game, the player need to understand the instructions to pass the level. When the boss is coming, the player need to stop all the instruments quickly. If failed, the player also need to read the instruction to find out which part was not completed so that he/she could play better in the second try. Every instrument has a name, such as "Radio", "Whistle", Xylophone", etc. The students are expected to remember all the names of the instruments. According to Maryland Content Standards for Adult ESL/ESOL(p.11), the reading indicators of low intermediate ESL/ESOL learners can be: apply simple context clues to determine the meaning of new words; comprehend simple and compound sentences in authentic materials; identify main idea, chronological order, and simple transitions in texts on familiar subjects. The grammar indicators include future tense, present perfect tense, adverbs, conjunctions and so on. Therefore, I think Sound Factory is suitable for the low intermediate level or above.

The teacher could teach the words in the game. For the game itself, it is simple enough. Students should not have any problems to pass the levels. However, for the low intermediate learners, they might have questions about the names of the instruments. I will teach the prefixes, suffixes and the roots when teaching words. For example, the root "xylo" of "xylophone" means "wood"; and "phone" can indicate musical instruments. The students can remember the word easily once they understand the root. Then I will provide some words with the same root, such as "saxophone", and introduce a new instrument "water phone". Also, I will use the images from the game to teach vocabulary since students are familiar with them in the game.

Although I believe the walkthrough is not crucial for the game, I would give some tips to help the students. One tip is that you can click on the instrument's icon at the bottom to toggle them on and off immediately.

To assess whether the learning objectives had been met, I will give the students orders to see if they are able to response correctly. For instance, the students need to compose the xylophone when I say "xylophone"; when I say "stop the tea cup" they need to do the same thing. When the students are familiar with the vocabulary, I will show them the images of the instruments and ask them to say the words. In addition, the students can practice the simple past tense by telling what he/she did in the game. They may say "I composed the mouse choir, and then I turned on the radio..." For the higher level, the students may use some conjunctions to make it more clearer. The open-ended exercise will ensure every student has something to say.

Gamification in language learning

Gamification, as I see it, is using games to let users get involved and make progress when they focus on the activities. There are several features of game that can be used for other fields according to Tom Chatfield, such as measuring progress, rewards for effort, clear feedback, etc. Some elements were also mentioned in A Comparison of Computer Game and Language-Learning Task Design Using Flow Theory. The author believes the key points for a sucessful game/task should be (1)goals, (2) feedback, and (3) a skill/difficulty balance. Educators can use such features to motivate students to overcome challenges.

Gamification seems dominant in early childhood education. For the young kids, they cannot focus on the study for a long time. Therefore, playing games is the best way to teach kids. One common way to review words is to ramdomly point the word and the students say it out loud. I think one of the game's feature, the element of uncertainty, is the factor that interest the kids. In addition, many teachers love to sent out stickers to praise the kids. In the end of the semester, they children will get little presents according to the number of the stickers. It is the "reward" and "feedback" in the gamification. So I think gamification is not just playing games, but use the game's feature to teach.

Some think that playing commercial games is wasting time. However, Julie M. Syke argues that both educational and commercial games as potentially useful for language teaching and learning. Only, teachers need to aware that if the game can corresponde to the desired learning outcome. The games in the classroom should not be designed for purely entertainment purpose. In the article 7 Things You Should Know About Games and Learning, it says that nowadays games and game mechanics are increasingly being employed at colleges and universities. Teachers need to learn gamification and apply it in the classroom.

Twitter in ESL classroom

Unfortunately, Chinese government blocked Twitter as well as Facebook, Youtube, etc. Though we have Chinese version of Twitter, they are different in some ways. If China no longer block Twitter, how can I use Twitter in teaching English?

In the article How Twitter Can Be Used as a Powerful Educational Tool, it mentions hashtags. By searching hashtags, we are able to see what the world are saying about the topics. Also, we can join the discussion by adding hashtags. As a teacher, I will tweet a question with a hashtag and then ask my students to answer it with the same hashtag. It could be asking their opions towards a event, or finding solutions to a problem. In addition, I will let my students attend some Twitterchats, such as #21stedchat, #ESL. They will be able to share their ideas from a student's aspect with the world.

 Teaching with Twitter says that students can give instant feedback of a presentation or a video on Twitter. I think it is a great idea for those who unwilling to give opions in class. Students have to summarize their ideas in 140 characters, which is challenging. But for those have not much to say in a foreign language, it could actually release their pressure and encourage them to express ideas.

Twitterchats

I attended a Twitterchat whose hashtag is #asiaED. It is a slow flow chat with one question a day so that members could write down their opions without one-hour time limit. I checked out other Twitterchats and I think this one is the best for me.

This week's topic is about computering. I found it difficult to understand the abbreviation in other attendants' Twitters:

Then I realized abbreviation is so important due to the 140-character format when I wrote my answer.

 

Some of the attendants gave links of their blog or other websites to express their ideas. I would say it is a better way than tweeting several times to answer one question. I do think Twitterchats is a good way to communicate with other educators even experts, but attendants should find the best suitable group for them. Some enjoy the fast flow discussion while some believe a good answer should be well considerated.

 

I think Twitterchats could be a good form of professional development for me. It provoks thoughts and expands horizons. Discussing different topics encourages me to think deeper and wider. Exchanging ideas with educators from all over helps me see things in different aspects.

ePals

 

ePals is a community connects students and teachers all over the world for interactive projects. It develops the Peer-Assisted Learning Theory. Students would feel more comfortable to communicate with peers instead of teachers. Students from different countries can help each other in language learning, culture understanding and many other projects by sending emails. It is also a great opportunity to make friends. There are many wonderful projects in ePals, I would like to introduce three educational projects:

Who Are We? A McGraw-Hill World Languages Project
This project is designed for native speakers of English who are learning Spanish, and native-Spanish speakers who are learning English. Only classes that meet this description will be accepted! Classes will be paired together for project collaboration so that students have the opportunity to practice the target language with native speakers.

 The Way We Are--A National Geographic Project
In this introductory project, students will engage in a collaborative learning experience. Through email exchanges, students will build friendships and learn about the daily lives and characteristics of the local environment of students who live in another region of the world.

Let's Paint the Globe Green!
This project aims at connecting the eco-clubs of various schools and providing them with a platform where they can share their green practices in their cultural and environmental surroundings. It will not only help develop friendships across the globe, provide an understanding of various cultures, but also give them a global understanding of the Go Green concept.

Apart from the projects, I found that the in2Books program very useful. The program has students from around the world talking about their books and authors, posting their comments, writings, and reviews. However, the in2Books program is only available for schools in the U.S. If I have a chance to teach in the U.S. I will encourage my students to join the program. Students would develop deeper comprehension and thoughtful writing in the program.