Teaching English as a foreign language to young adults, I observe that
almost all of my students are very much into playing video games either during
break times or even in class time. I
strongly believe that “identifying students’ passions
and using them as a vehicle for relating academic content,” (Squire, 2011, p.
46) plays an important role in learning.
Therefore, games, simulations, and virtual environments can be employed
to motivate and promote students’ learning English as a foreign language.
One game that my EFL
students enjoy and learn from would be SimCity. “In SimCity, you are the
mayor of your very own city. You’re the one who draws roads and zones and
manages everything from health and safety, to education, industry and beyond” (www.simcity.com). After
presenting the simulation software to students in the multimedia lab and
students learn how to play SimCity, one of the ways that I would use SimCity
would be asking students to build their own simulation city in collaboration
within their assigned groups in which they play the mayor role of the city and
design their city the way they like.
This is when the simulated city will become students’ learning
environment while they are having fun playing the game. After that, students will be working on their
assigned topic in which they will present their simulated city to class in
groups in the multimedia lab so that the rest of the class will be able to monitor
the presentation on the computer screens in front of them. Doing so will lead
to interaction between listeners and presenters with the help of question and
answer time. Another way I would use
this game would be an in-class writing assignment. Based on a problem scenario
that I would create, I would ask
students to use certain target language structures and write a response letter
in order to solve the problems in the city as a mayor. With the creative problem solving objective
in mind, I would incorporate the SimCity game in my writing class. Besides, knowing students’ interest in
playing video games they “will willingly write and read texts that are far more
complicated than texts about topics that they are not passionate about”
(Squire, 2011, p.46), I would be giving them purpose to do the assignment.
Olsen (2009) tells
us that “The difference in many of today’s educational games is that they are
online and social, allowing children to interact and collaborate to achieve
common goals”. With this in my, I would introduce Games Mechanic to the
students in order to “learn to design video games” (http://gamesmechanic.com). To promote learning through playing, I would assign students to make
their own vocabulary game by creating a crossword puzzle on Games Mechanic for
revision purposes and than share the game with their classmates for the purpose
of interaction while asking and answering each others’ questions in order to
complete the puzzle. By playing this game, I want students realize that
vocabulary is something that needs to be reviewed instead of memorizing right
before the exam. Therefore, Games
Mechanic can allow students “develop deep relations with the knowledge that’s
there” (Laureate, 2012) while having
fun.
References
Gamestar Mechanic. (n.d.).
Gamestar mechanic. Retrieved from
http://gamestarmechanic.com/faq/page/1
Laureate Education, Inc.
(Executive Producer). (2012b). Learning through games. Baltimore, MD: Author.
Olsen, S. (2009). Educational
video games mix cool with purpose. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/technology/02games.html?_r=0
SimCity (n.d.)http://www.simcity.com/en_US/faq
Squire, K. (2011). Video games and
learning: Teaching and participatory culture in the digital age. New York,
NY: Teachers College Press.
