This week I will introduce two game sites and a virtual environment that would benefit Adult English Language Learners.
WordBuster is an
educational word creation / spelling game for people of any age who enjoy
challenging their vocabulary retention. Players need to write as many words as
they can starting with the 3-letter prefixes in 1 minute. You score more points
if you can find longer and better words, which would be a great game using the
mobile phones in class. Learners can be paired up and asked to compete each
other using their mobile phones. At the end of the game, the teacher might ask
which words they have thought of and those words are written on the board. The
game also improves learners’ spelling as it tells you that it’s incorrect. You
may try this game at http://www.learn4good.com/games/words/englishvocabularybuilding.htm.
The Lord of the
Flies, one of the true classics that can lead to great class discussion, has an
educational game which can be found at http://www.nobelprize.org/educational/literature/golding/about.html. The writer, William Golding, was awarded the 1983
Nobel Prize in Literature "for his novels which, with the perspicuity of
realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate
the human condition in the world of today" (nobelprize.org, 2012). It
could be done with Advanced ESL/EFL learners after they have read the book.
They could do it individually to refresh their memories about the characters
and reminded of the analytical aspects of the book. Or it could be done in
groups competing with other groups and the discussion starts from there.
Moviestorm is a virtual environment where the charactersare controlled by you as the producer. It allows you to create your characters, place the characters on the set, move and interact with each other, change their mood , place camerasaround the set to film the action from different places, and record script fo them. Finally, the final movie can be put on the web to be shared with anyone. It would be a great group project for students. They could be asked to choose a theme and write a script for it using the vocabulary necessary for it. Or they can be asked to use recently studied structures in their dialogues. These animated movies can be shared on the class blog, or social networking site and learners could vote for the best one. They serve as a great tool for making presentation more effective and fun. Teachers can prepare mini tutorials on grammatical structures and present them to introduce them. Or they can write dialogues between celebrities, or politicians to start a discussion on current news. They would also liven up the dull dialogues in the coursebooks. Learners can share the listenings in the coursebook and choose their characters, read them, play with their actions and change the moods according to the feelings they would like to give. You may find many sample movies, lesson plans, and comments of educators who use them on http://www.moviestorm.co.uk/hub/movies
"The Nobel
Prize in Literature 1983". Nobelprize.org.29 Nov 2012
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1983/index.html.
Hi Su,
ReplyDeleteI think all your suggestions are great for language learners, but I am especially interested in Moviestorm. I would love to try it out in class as a group project. I would assign groups of four or five learners to write a scenario, as you suggest, and film it. I would start this in the first week of the course and build it up every week, so it would be my learners’ term project. My learners would enjoy working on this project because they can be creative, they will be working in collaboration with their team members, and they will have fun. In the end, every group can share their film on an online platform so that others can view it and give feedback.
Thank you for this exciting idea,
Izlem.
Thank you, Izlem.
DeleteSu
Hi Su,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog this week, it was interesting to learn new things about WordBuster & Moviestorm both were creative games that I felt as if learners could gain information from. WordBuster was interesting due to how it helped learners gain, reading skills, language skills and focus on spelling. I was wondering does this game have a dictionary installation which can help learner’s correct misspelled words. As for Moviestorm, I loved the concept of all the different things learners could do and the fun they could have in interacting with a group or just as an individual. Thanks for your contributions this week.
Melitta
Thank you, Melitta. The site has free applications for smart phones, Androids,iPhones and iPads.
DeleteGlad you like them.
Su