http://digitalplay.info/blog/2009/10/gateway-a-puzzle-game-for-whole-class-activity/
Gateway is a short, absorbing and entertaining puzzle game with ten levels that can be used to generate language in the ESL classroom, especially if you have access to a connected classroom (with an internet enabled computer and a data projector).
The Game
You have to guide a robot through a number of different rooms, each of which require the solving of a puzzle. This is highly entertaining, but it is easy enough to do, so it’s not so obvious how you can use this for language learning…
Adapting the game
One idea would be to play the game in a whole-class situation and ask the students to guess what has to be done to pass the robot to the next room – there could be two teams and points awarded for the team which guesses correctly the right way to get the robot to the next room.
Another team-game way of using Gateway could be to award each team a number of seconds (accumulated for answering questions) – they ’spend’ the seconds trying to get the robot through the door, winning points for each door they pass the robot through.
More Information
Read more about Gateway here / read the walkthrough
The game’s puzzles are easy until you get to the TV at level 9 (see image above), which requires more thought to solve (answer = the sequence on the TV monitors shows the numbers you need to press on the keypad to let you out the door = 95271)
There is a sequel, which continues the story, Gateway II - this continues with the story, but involves a lot of text that would be quite difficult for all but higher levels. See walkthrough here
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One Comment
Great idea Graham – I never thought to blend my punishment/ reward point system I use in class with game playing. Converting points into “play time” could offer a greater incentive for my learners to behave.