Mission: Conversational English

My previous post discussed the potentials of using games in the ESL classroom to meet learning objectives; it focused on casual games.  This post is going to discuss the benefits of using serious games, specifically for individual learning outside of the classroom.  The game I chose to use as an example is Mission US; it is a series of interactive games that are based off of various events from United States history.  The game that I have experience playing is Mission 1:  For Crown or Colony?  The premise of this game is a 14 year old boy named Nat Wheeler in 1770 Massachusetts who is forced to go apprentice for a news paper right before the revolutionary war breaks out.  He has various tasks he has to complete through out the game as an apprentice along with making the choice of which side to take during the war.  I would introduce this game to my ESL students as supplemental learning material during a conversational unit. This game incorporates the skills of listening and reading, however I would use it during a conversational unit because the main character (the student) interacts with the surrounding characters through dialogue/conversational format.  The other characters actually respond based on what Nat chooses to say (options appear on the screen).  This type of game is also good for an ESL class because it incorporates American culture into the learning of the language.  My language learning objectives would be:  Students would demonstrate language skills necessary for effective communication:  such as listening comprehension skills and

control of English grammar.  I would encourage my students to play this game in pairs and each practice taking on the roles of the main character and supporting characters and reading the dialogue out loud each turn.  I would assess their ability to communicate effectively in English a couple of ways: First I would ask them to create a role play as an assignment initiating a conversation based on the premise of the game.  Then as an in class assignment I would have them pair up and carry on a conversation taking turns initiating and answering/responding.  This would be a good game to use when first introducing conversational skills in the class, it's a good starting activity to get the students used to the "flow" of English conversations.

A "Walkthrough" of the English Language: A Game Play Approach to Language Learning

ESL teachers are always looking for new and exciting ways to present material to students that will facilitate language learning within the classroom by engaging them in the lesson.  Another major obstacle for teachers is creating fun and meaningful lessons that will entice students to become willing participants in the language learning process; to find games and activities that also provide learning contexts.  Gamification is one such teaching technique that allows for a solution to each of the problems listed above.  The idea behind gamification is the application of game techniques and the use of game thinking in non-game contexts to aid people (students)  in solving problems.  One type of game, casual games, specifically Escape the Room games which is a genre of casual games, is especially useful to facilitate learning in the language classroom.  According to Graham Stanley, Escape the room games are effective teaching tools to use in the language classroom because they provide "good live listening skills" through the use of walkthroughs. I have had experience with one Escape the Room game in particular, Mystery of Time and Space (Motas) which involves the gamer completing various mini tasks in order to complete the larger task of escaping from a particular room.  I played about five levels of this game.  The good thing about this game is it has a lot of levels that increase in difficulty and you do not have to play all the levels in one sitting. After reading an article on this game and playing the game for myself I realized the potential for this game in the language learning classroom.  My language learning objectives for a lesson involving Motas would be: learners would demonstrate an understanding of everyday household vocabulary through the successful completion of the mini tasks involved in this type of game; and students will demonstrate the ability to listen to and follow directions in English by making visible progress in the game as they successfully move from task to task and/or room to room. The mini tasks would be dictated by the teacher which are incorporated in the walkthrough for Motas.  As the teacher, my role would be to mediate the students' comprehension of the purpose of this game through giving them detailed and specific directions on how the game works.  Once I am sure that all of my students have a grasp on the purpose of the game I would then shift my role to guide, as I guide the students through the mini tasks presented in the walkthrough making sure to use appropriate vocabulary and give feedback through clarification of steps when needed. Stanley even suggests that the teacher adapt the walkthrough to meet the specific vocabulary needs of the learners.  The role of the students would then be to listen carefully to the directions being dictated by the teacher and try to complete the puzzle or escape from the room through recollection of the vocabulary and completion of the various mini tasks.  One suggested warm up activity, which I really like, before having the students play the game is to show them still images of some of the rooms and ask them in pairs or as a class as a whole to name objects in the room.  I will be able to tell which students understand the target vocabulary and which students are having trouble with it by who is able to complete the tasks and who is not able to complete the tasks.  Another good way to assess understanding is to give the students a printed copy of the walkthrough and see who is able to escape from the room with little to no help from the teacher.  I honestly never thought that this type of game could be seen as a learning tool until I explored and researched the benefits of it in the classroom.  And I have concluded that this is definitely a teaching tool I will take advantage of in my future ESL classroom.

Just a Tweet? Or, So Much More?

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I never realized the potential of Tweeting in regards to professional development.  I have learned so many ways that Twitter can benefit me as an educator just by being part of the Twitter community for only a few days.  I have also explored some very interesting and informative articles that enhanced my knowledge of twitter as a professional learning network.   Ways Teachers Can Use Twitter for Professional Development and The Teacher's Guide to Twitter are two very in depth articles that walk educators through the various uses of Twitter for educational purposes as well as how to use the different Twitter tools correctly.  I feel that Twitter will provide me with many opportunities to connect with current and experienced educators in my field of ESL as well as allow me to share my own ideas about teaching.  One thing that both of these articles touched on was the idea that Twitter is a "two way street," it is giving and taking of ideas and resources.  This means that it is a learning community where people with shared interests can learn from each other and their experiences.

This is especially important for new and future educators; I know that I feel very fortunate to have a social learning network such as Twitter where I can connect with experts in the field of teaching ESL and ask for advice for my future classroom.  I also enjoy and find beneficial just following educators' tweets and connecting to their resource links such as teaching sites and articles.  I am still very new to Twitter and need to learn more about how to use it and get the most out of it for professional purposes, but so far I am enjoying what it has to offer me as a future educator.

#tweetsareeducational!!

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How in the world could Twitter be beneficial for me as an educator? That is a question many might ask  when told that Twitter is a good tool to use for professional development, and that is the exact question I asked myself when I signed up for the account as part of my educational technologies course.  Up until now I was completely against Twitter; that could be because I only knew it as a means for common everyday people to implicitly stalk their favorite celebrities, and well, as a means for celebrities to get instant attention.  But this view changed when I began to explore the varied uses of Twitter and I attended my first Twitterchat, #edtechchat.  This chat was very informative for me as an educator as it consisted of teachers, students, and other educators posting informative sites and tips on using technology in education as well as information on how to improve the general educational system of today. There was some conversational dialogue happening during this chat as others would comment on and reply to others' tweets, but the majority of the chat was people posting about different educational topics and linking useful sites to their tweets, which I found to be very useful.  I visited one site in particular connectlearningtoday.com, and read an awesome article on using the virtual learning tool augmented reality in the classroom.  Overall, I felt my first Twitterchat for educational purposes provided me with a wealth of information that will help with my future teaching. This experience also showed me that Twitter is indeed a good tool to use for professional development as it helps me to connect with other educators and share ideas and resources.

Flipped Learning Through Social Networking

One thing I have learned from my LAI technologies class is the importance and usefulness of social networking, especially for learning from and through others and their experiences.  There are numerous social networking sites out there that provide people with information and tools to help them advance and be successful in their careers, in particular their teaching career.  One social networking site that I have just explored and joined is the Flipped Learning Network.  I was attracted to this site in particular because I am very interested in learning how to incorporate individualized teaching into my future L2 English classroom.  This teaching method is also very similar to learning how to incorporate individual learning styles and interests into the curriculum, which is a very important and useful teaching method to help facilitate learning in the ESL classroom.
 The Flipped Learning Site is useful for current and future teachers of all areas because it gives educators a forum to share their best flipped teaching practices and also share things that did not seem to work in the classroom; therefore providing current and future teachers with tools that will benefit students as well as with practices that are not useful for students.  I feel that joining this site now during my studies, will allow me time to read up and research some more on how to best implement successfully and efficiently this teaching strategy into my future classroom.  I look forward to all I will learn from educators through this site.

Keeping Up With Today's Learner

A learner of today is like a chameleon who is constantly changing his color to adapt to and survive in a constantly changing environment.  The learner of today is constantly changing his/her ways of thinking and learning to keep up with all the new knowledge that is surfacing so often in today's world. In his article A Learning Theory for the Digital Age George Siemens refers to the concept of half-life knowledge and how it relates to today's learner.  New knowledge is being born so often in today's world, such as technological advances and social learning environments, that people have to constantly change the the ways they think and the decisions they make due to this constant influx of new knowledge.  However, though learner's today are considered "digital natives," those who grew up learning from and through technology, educational systems still emphasize  and practice learning theories that are only concerned with the actual process of learning and "not with the value of what is being learned."
In his brief video, The Conflict of Learning Theories with Human Nature, Siemens elaborates on the problem of educational systems today limiting the way they present information to today's learner based mainly on past theorist's ideas and research.  In this video he explains that it is human nature to make sense of the world around us by externalizing our thoughts, and that through this process meaning is being created and learning is happening.  For today's learner the way they externalize their thoughts and learn is through technology. And connecting with others through technology such as with online specialized learning communities are important activities that allow students to learn through others and from their experiences.  But as Siemens states, educators today have failed to keep up with today's

learner and adapt their ways of teaching and presenting information to meet the ever changing learning environments of these learners:  "To begin to see the power of connecting in an external fashion really requires that we rethink and rewrite much of how we'er currently conceiving  learning and knowledge in our academic settings."