The Case for Real Games in ELL
by Penelope Colville MA (Educational Technology)
A lot is made of the value of games and simulations in education and training. Game-ification however, should not be confused with games of skill and chance. True, the opportunity to put knowledge into practice and get instant feedback, which is one great feature of automated exercises, but game-fication too often fails to do more than dress up multiple choice exercises with images, bells ‘n whistles – a layer of entertainment of limited value to teaching. Real games, on the other hand, are very well aligned in both pedagogy and andragogy with the best practices for developing skills.
As an accredited educational technologist working for North American majors, I developed simulations for “white” and “blue” collar job training. The idea of applying gaming to language teaching was a natural when I made a career-altering move to China. Many language teachers would like to adopt games, but they are difficult and time-consuming to develop. Then there are the parents, who often consider games a frivolous waste of time (and their money).
For those arguing their case to the traditional parent, strait-laced school master or unadventurous colleague, there is lots of respectable research on their superiority. Much of it has long been supported by educational theory.
- Constructivism. In education, Constructivism has a long history. In terms of a child-centered approach, Maria Montessori is famously a champion of self-directed, hands-on learning within an environment specifically prepared. From adult learning perspective, the social context of learning is paramount. I like to say that in particular, language-ing needs community. Games create that just-in-time community. They might require students to work collaboratively or compete against one another in order to reach a personal best; Make Sense! offers both. The benefits of gaming over an unstructured “English Café” is simply design: game design for “real games” of skill and chance should provide goals, objectives, alternative ‘correct’ paths to success, and unambiguous, reliable feedback on performance.
- Motivation. Games build emotional connection that defeats boredom and sharpens attention. Players agree to a structure and meaning over a significant course of time. In addition to creating a mini-world of clear choices, rules and consequences, a good game also sets up an unfinished story with a mission … and protagonists. The narrative of a game unfolding is akin to the plot of a book. Engagement is almost automatic since every player has agency in how the story goes. Repeated gaming, far from being a “nice relief from serious teaching” actually provides an environment that highlights alternative paths, encourages the emergence of tactics and develops an understanding of strategies.
- Student-centred approaches. Another tenant of instructional design echoed in theories of learning is to begin where the learner lives. I am not talking about choosing the correct level of difficulty/challenge but rather recognizing how much time learners now spend in gaming in general. Throughout history mankind has played games, and not out of idleness; one popular use of Make Sense! is as a brain-sharpening tool for seniors’ recreation programs. Games and simulations, sometimes called ‘serious games’ have long had a place in the training of critical skills such as police work, pilot training and air traffic control. In the general zeitgeist, video games are an emerging entertainment media that play a central role in the development of the current generation. Success at online games requires an array of skills; these games raise the bar for gaming in education. This is why game-ified exercises fall short of reaching more serious ESL and ELL objectives.
Make Sense! addresses both speaking and writing skills in the form of syntax for simple, compound, cumulative and complex sentences; speaking objectives such as stress, intonation and pausing; and introduces idioms. There are 12 ways of modifying the 5 games to adjust for desirable levels of difficulty.
With thanks for the influences of
- Gordon Pask, educational cybernetician, author and father of Conversation Theory and Interaction of Actors (1928 – 1996)
- Jerome Bruner, Discovery Learning (1915-2016)
- Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, (1870-1952)
- Keith Burgun, author Game Design Theory
How Make Sense! Beats the Level 6 IELTS Road Block
by Penelope Colville MA (Educational Technology)
Years spent as an IELTS examiner overseas was an invaluable opportunity
to analyze this phenomenon: the vast majority of disappointed candidates
(roughly 75% of all candidates taking the test) are those who cannot make
a score of 6.
Level 6 is a difficult hurdle to pass. This is because all the skills required
on the IELTS – in particular, writing – come into play all at the same time.
Managing all these skills at once, and in relation to each other, is a complex
task for the English learner. By Level 6, the candidate must at least attempt
1) formal essay structure
2) perfect tenses and passive voice
3) an idiom
4) a variety of sentence structures
5) sufficient vocabulary to satisfy a particular lexicon for the topic
6) enough knowledge or experience of an issue to describe and argue
points of view
At Level 6, the standards being used essentially look at the percentage of
success with the application of these skills, compared to failed attempts.
IELTS Levels 7 and above essentially map increasing success with these
same skills.
How does Make Sense! address the problem of the difficult hurdle of too
much complexity at once? First, the cards featuring logical elements WHO,
WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY, HOW, RESULT, DETAIL and PLUS provide
all the content for tens of thousands of different sentences. There are only
two content decisions a player has to make: what kind of preposition to
use (to, at, in, from, etc.) in the WHERE, and a choice between past and
present tense (WHAT) and their related time signatures (WHEN).
The learner is not slowed by having to decide on content or searching for
vocabulary. The games appeal to the pattern-learning part of the brain.
While the games may used to teach several skills, the focus is on one: syntax. All other interference is removed; the question of pattern becomes
central. All the learner’s concentration is on the possible arrangements of
logical elements.
The only other activity that works on syntax so relentlessly is the act of
reading. The understanding is that all IELTS candidates with a high score
(7.5 to 9) read English for pleasure – in other words, read about what they
are interested in – every day. For less self-directed learners, the act of
gaming, of collaborative work, with humour built in, is a great alternative for
the classroom. Solitaire Syntax is a good option for solitary practice at
home or with friends.
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