What’s in a Game? Part 2

I love adapting ideas because I think it is important to adapt them to my context. There are particular characteristics that I need to take into consideration like age range as well as the profile of the Ss or group.

Last week with my 9th graders groups I used some ideas from one of my fav resource books: Teaching Grammar Creatively. The great thing about it is that it is text based and Ss own texts come to live as well as setting the context for the use of the grammar in interesting ways. Needless to say that I have been highly influenced by Teaching Unplugged principles, so any opportunity to exposure students to the language, raise their awareness of patterns, focus on conversation (either orally or written) and using less material…the better.

Keep in mind that I am not copying and pasting the instructions here, but rather explanning what I did with them and how I adapted to my context of teaching as well as reflecting at some teaching/learning aspects and concepts I am exploring myself.

Can they work collaboratively while they are competing?

Before the Game: Discovery stage

The book suggests working with the hot seat. I did it just once in each group with a student that either volunteered or had the highest level of English. I recorded the interview and saved the audio for later. Then, right after the interview I elicited the information the student gave focusing on a particular day. I wrote each contribution/modified their utterances needed on the board (Oral stage with a focus on listening). As they listened and read the sentences/information on the board we focused on the language. I erased the board. After that in pairs, they had to write as many questions as they could remember from the interview. They wrote them on their notebooks. I elicited once more and instructed them to compare the sentences (correction stage) and add the ones they hadn’t written yet. All contributions were accepted. Then, I played the recording. They listened and checked the ones that were actually asked. Before erasing the board, I drew their attention to the past tense.

The Game: Consolidation stage

In the previous stage, I concentrated my questions on a particular day of the week. In this stage, I concentrate on a place. I wrote “Egypt” on the board, and drew pyramids. Following the authors suggestion, I asked them to ask me questions about Egypt, but instead of orally through writing. In all groups I did this, accept in one because it is 1-2-1 class. So I can’t use the game approach.

Setting the Game

Divide the group or as in my case, in couple of groups, they played individually (number of slips of paper were 8 instead of 16 for the pairs or groups of three). It is actually pretty simple and dynamic game. Racing against each other really gives the competitive flavour teens love so much. They had also to work collaboratively when they were grouped.

Playing it

  The nicest part of the authors suggestion is that it is not enough to write the questions, they have also to self-correct it. I use a simple system with my 9th graders (See the picture).

So, they came back and forth. If the question ws correctly formed (and also relevant), I would write the answer on it and that was counting as one point. if not, I would use one of the symbols and let them discover their mistakes and correct it. When the word was circled, it wasn’t necessary they need a whole new word. It meant actually that it might be a grammar problem (wrong tense, lack of s for plural, etc.) or vocabulary. Only at the last resource, I would actually give them more than that, which didn’t happen much. I would keep all the slips in my desk until they were finished. The first group to use all the slips of paper, won the game. It was quite interesting though to see them almost of the same amount of slips and racing against each other in a fun and collaborative way.

Do games foster collaboration?

Competition has an interesting role here. And inasmuch as I never liked putting them to compete, I have to admit that this is the kind of competition that is healthy and motivating. It really links to what they know best as most of them really like sports and they know that in order to win they need to work collaboratively, focus on the task, contribute, share, do their part. It taps their love for it and the rules of sports comes up easily as they are imprinted on them.

Back in the end of July I wrote Part 1 in which I reflected on the language aspect of using games in class. In this post, my reflection is on how competition can be benefitial, even when they are playing against each other individually. Then back in September because of a course I was taking, I reflected on how ludicity plays a role in language learning.

Games have always been an issue and not because I don’t like having fun, quite on the opposite. I just don’t believe that fun is a result of a game, but actually a state in which we throw ourselves into when we are with people that we enjoy the company and it has not purpose of winning. So, it is not just about games, it is a state of mind where playfulness and laughter is present at all times, especially when you are happy. You joke with words. You tease each other. You laugh. You even play silly games. This kind of playfullness is quite different from what we encounter in sports. Actually this kind of playing is serious game. Playfullness on the other hand, it might be present in the locker room, in the training practice, during the game itself.

  In my journey to understand playfullness it is becoming clear as day that there is more to games in the classroom than the actually game itself. How about you? What are you thoughts on it? Please refer back to the previous post on the same topic to reflect on playfullness, ludic activities and ludicity.

Gamification as a group management tool

Managing a group of twenty 8th graders isn’t easy, even when you are using songs, videos, games or films. You can never grab everyone’s attention at the same time nor make they do what you want them to do. Peers on the other hand can 😉 The concept of gamification in the classroom is something really close to what most boys are used to. Most of them play games and most of them were boys.

These particular students spend the whole day in school because they receive full-time education. In the morning they have the normal curriculum and exams. In the afternoon they take extra-curriculum workshops and classes (Robotics, language, etc.). They have English classes in the morning and in the afternoon. And the classes have the aim to complement each other. Our focus in the afternoon is on oral skills (listening and speaking) and there is no passing grade involved. Another interesting characteristic is that in the morning they all study together, but in the afternoon, they are split in two groups for the English lessons( I have about 13 Ss every week). It is a total of 25 students all together, some of them didn’t come last week. This week, I had 20 instead of 13 because I had to cover up for my colleague. But whether it is 13 or 20 the level of noise and difficult to grab everyone’s attention is the same. So I decided to give gamification (or sort of it) a try. Was it useful? Pretty much, I had never seen them so quiet and focused. Surprisingly, we’ve had only couple of incidents in which made the group lose a card.

I was thinking more towards “Gincana” which means teams receive a series of tasks and if they accomplish, they get points for them. The team with most points win. But I guess, they some how are similar in concept, apart from the fact that if you consider that they need to master one level until they can move to the next one, them the groups would move in a different pace. In this case, I made the call of when (setting the time, giving the instructions and rules to move to the next level, then count the points according to the activity aim). I was quite flexible with time though and how many times the video/song were played. And the whole thing ran really smoothly.

Steps Planned:
Number of students: 20

Age: Around 13

Level of English: Mixed-levels (they chose who they wanted to work with)

Resources: Projector, Roar Emoticons video clip, Roar official video clip, Emoticons song worksheet by Eduardo Siemens, David Deubel complete the lyrics, small cards (different colors would be even better :).

After they teamed-up (6 groups of 3/4 Ss), they received 3 blank cards to write on each of them the names of each member of their team. Then, I shared with them the aim, the rules and then briefly what the activities were. Each card was worth 3 points. One of the aims was not to lose any of those points.

Some of the rules I had already set before the class:

The first group to complete it – get a card

The group with more points – get a card

The group who was the most organized and collaborative – get two cards

The groups will start with 3 cards each. If they misbehaved, they’d lose a card.

 Development of the lesson:

1) They watched once without sound, then once with the sound on – What’s that? an online chat. Can you decode the emoticons and discover the message? In groups of 3 they worked together to share what they already knew and learn new things.  Instead of each member of the group receive 3 pages . Each member of the group received one to work with and they were encouraged to collaborate. I used Eduardo Siemens worksheet.

2) Each student got a worksheet (by David Deubel) to complete the lyrics with the missing words. They did without looking to the previous worksheet. They had to listen and complete.

3) They watched the official Roar video without sound this time. They watched it attentively as they knew what the next task would be. In groups, they worked together to retell the story by writing on the cards. ( I had the idea that they could draw as well, but there was no time to do it. So, I didn’t even mention it. I would love to have given them the opportunity to express themselves through drawing and speaking – Who likes drawing? While some are working on the verbal part, the other student(s) could have worked in the non-verbal)

4) The last task would be to retell it orally but there wasn’t enough time. My group will be able to work on this stage tomorrow. For the other students it will be up to the other teacher.

Reflection notes after the class:

1) The video with the emoticons. Students reaction to it was positive, as Eduardo Siemens mentioned in his post Ss do mentioned whatsapp, Iphone, it’s a song.

Interesting enough they were reading it without caring to listen to the song at all.

2) The activity to decode the emoticons has three pages, so each member of the group would be responsible for one without listening to the song. they used their cellphone to help them decode the message. they loved doing it. they had to use pen to complete it without messing it up otherwise they would lose a point. after they couldn’t go any further I allowed them to use their mobile devices (one group didn’t have access to internet, so I let them use my tablet) to find the song if they already knew which song it was  and complete. as soon as the first one completed. at this point I let the music play while they were searching and completing the lyrics. the stage was over. time for the next task. then, they signed their names and handed in the pages. (song near the end only)

3) Time to listen and complete the lyrics. everyone in the group had their own copy to complete. I played about 3 times as requested. Then, signed and handed in. Every member of the group had to complete their worksheet. (only audio)

4) They watched the official video twice. Then, in teams they would write as much as they could remember about the video. (video without sound)

5) Each group got a copy of the completed lyrics. At this point… 5 minutes to finish the class. Each group in order to leave, they would need to listen attentively and then where I stopped they would need to complete the song by singing few lines (only one was needed to release the group from prison LOL). One team by one team, I would stop, and they would sing and leave the room.

It was definitely fun for all of us. I thought I could have given them a prize, but I’m not sure there was really a need for that. They will get the score of each team tomorrow! 😀

What motivated them to sit quietly and focus on the tasks? There were a moment or two while watching the video that a student or two that couldn’t focus. For example, one student when the lights were off, closed his eyes, then his buddy reminded him that he needed to fully participate. Another time, couple of boys played around a little bit. Most of them though were concentrated and focused in order not to lose any of their points.

HILARIOUS! After watching the official video once, one of them asked to watch it one more time. No one followed him with the request, so I decided to ask the whole group to raise their hand if they wanted to watch it again. No one did, apart from the Student who had already showed his interest in watching one more time. So, almost instantaneously the boy said, “teacher I’m going to ask in Portuguese because they surely didn’t understand.” So he did and hands started to go up. and we all laughed. lol

As for fun, it was great. The competition in the air, defending their points at all cost (even if for that they had to keep completely quiet). But what about learning? Or teaching for that matter? I mean they had opportunities to manipulate the same text over and over again, to listen, to sing, to test what they knew, to produce. What should we do after such a great sequence of tasks with a song?

 Follow-up activities I’ll be using tomorrow with my group: Running Dictation and Read & Look UP (John F. Fanselow)

Do you have the Walking Dead fans in your class?

Some of my Ss have tried to convince me several times that the Walking Dead story was cool. While they worked on giving their opinions on what they liked and didn’t like in their favorite tv series and creating posters, I heard and read their reasons for liking the ones I found gross and stupid and I gave mine. We discussed a bunch of things while having small talks. And while in a group you get a variety of opinions on the same subject, with one learner a small talk can lead to interesting discussions and we always learn new things. For me is the fact that I learn more and more about what my teens are up to and get a chance to understand why they like what they like. For them a chance to learn new vocabulary, pronunciation and shape their grammar as they get the support they need to communicate in English. Well, my intermediate 14-year-old teen L. is fully of love and energy to communicate in English and he is the reason why I ended up buying a comic book and exploring the zombie topic and its potential use as a learning tool.

About a month ago I ordered it (you can get a copy here or you can get the digital version on google play, I prefer the paper version as it easily circulate around the room) and last Tuesday L. asked me about it. When I got home though, I found the package and I was excited to start reading. I never liked gore and I really have a sensitive stomach to anything next to gross. So the comic book seemed like a good choice for a person like me. It wasn’t long before I started looking for apps on google play and I found couple of them that I would like to use if he was interested of course.Needless to say that all this excitement is due to the solid reasons they have given. L. makes all sound really cool when he talks about it and then I brought myself into it with his exciting view of the storyline and characters as we read today the author’s intro the discussion got deeper and comparison between the comic, the book and the tv show was inevitable.

Couple of Apps we used today:

The Walking Dead Yourself App

The Walking Dead Quiz App

As you can see I turned myself into a walker, but what was really great was L.’s comment when I offered him to do it himself. He replied that he’d be the survivor. Doesn’t this tell us something about how they feel and see things? I thought his point was really interesting and reminded me of what the author says in the intro to the comic series.

To me, the best zombie movies aren’t the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society… and our society’s station in the world. They show us gore and violence and all that cool stuff too… but there’s always an undercurrent of social commentary and thoughtfulness.

Robert Kirkman

L. is also my walking dead advisor. I just discovered today that the first season is all around the first volume. And he assured me that I will want to watch the tv show after reading it. So if you are not really interested in this kind of story, think again. Teens have a lot to say when we bring to the room what they are used to watch, read, listen and play. And by buying and using the apps, I am trying to educate myself not just to understand it from their perspective, but also to learn the language around this genre that I am not used to in order to be able to give them the support that they will need when they will give the try to talk/write about it. Even better create activities or use Apps that they can focus on the language. Many students asked me if we were going to watch the walking dead, I’m aware though that few of them are like me and hate gross stuff. The comic book is surely a great idea to bring in what they like. 😉

So don’t you give it a try!