Gamification, according to the article 7 Things You Should Know About Gamification, is "the application of game elements in non-gaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior." Gamification provides students with a fun filled environment while learning material. The article also states that gamification "offers instructors numerous creative opportunities to enliven their instruction with contests, leader boards, or badges that give students opportunities for recognition and a positive attitude toward their work. Students enjoy friendly competition that allows them to work together or separately toward attainable goals. Gamification is a positive way to motivate students into doing work while they are under the allusion that they are playing and having fun instead. Using games in not a new concept to teachers, it is a great way to get all students to participate in class. This is especially true in the language learning classrooms of ESL because constantly going over vocabulary can become boring and rudimentary. Games give a new level of creative learning that can occur in the classroom. When talking about the benefits of using games in the L2 classroom, it can be beneficial to discuss the article A Comparison of Computer Game and Language-Learning Task Design Using Flow Theory, by Stephan J. Franciosi. He talks about Digital Game Based Learning (DGBL) and Task-Based Language Learning (TBLL) and how in both, "skill are learned and/or improved through participation in activities that require that application of those skills." The article discusses how in order to provide a beneficial DGBL experience, there needs to be three conditions meet; goals, feedback and skill/difficulty balance. "Goals should be concrete, quantifiable objective, and appeal to learner interests; feedback as a means of fostering flow should be considered in addition to feedback as a means of supporting reflection; task difficulty and player skill are ideally balanced moment-by-moment as the individual level." Using DGBL in a language learning classroom can be beneficial to students, if teachers keep in mind these features.
Looking at games for the ESL classroom, there are a great deal of games that can be used. One genre of games that I am focusing on is Escape the Room games. According to the post Focus on genre: Escape the room games on the blog Digital Play, Escape the Room games are "point-and-click adventure games where players have to escape from imprisonment by exploiting their surroundings." One the blog, Larry Ferlazzo's websites of the day..., I read the post The Best "Fun" Online Video Games For English Language Development and played the game Phantasy Quest. I played the game the first time without reading the walkthrough and died swimming around in the water. I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing or where I was supposed to be going. I feel like the game is a little difficult at first, especially to someone who is not a constant gamer. However, once I read the walkthrough and followed the directions, it was much easier and I was able to complete my quest. It was fun and I believe students would enjoy getting to play a game like this.
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If I were to make a lesson based on using the game Phantasy Quest it would have the following language learning objectives: Students will be able to learn the vocabulary coconut, bottle, ladder, telescope, island, waterfall, stick, tree, lantern, plank, skull, cave, boulder, sand, crab, berry, pirate, boat, hut, village, fishing pole, beach, gold coin, skeleton key, rope, and sword, and students will be able to follow directions instructed by the teacher in English.The students would all be on their own computer, playing the game independently. The teacher's role is to function as a mediator and tell student directions. I am imagining that I would be working with very low level students, so I would be using the walkthrough to tell the students where to go and what to do. I would tell each step to the student, and they would (try to) appropriately follow them. We could use both pictures from the game and other media to show images for the vocabulary they are learning. We could add the images, along with the words to our classroom word wall. I would assess students on if they were able to follow directions correctly, of if they needed more mediation and guidance through the game. If students could do the game on their own, I would allow them to play on their own for next games. if students had a great deal of difficulty following my directions, I would change the wording of the walkthrough, or I would give them games where the vocabulary is easier and more familiar to them.
Great post, but I think the assessment could be more objective. Perhaps you could do some type of vocabulary test.
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