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.
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 
