Topic:  Murder Mystery

Language skill: Reading & listening

Game: Bow Street Runner

“This game is set in London’s Covent Gardens in the 1750s, and depicts a time when crime and vice in the city had hit such levels that the local magistrates began to introduce the first instances of physical policing of law and order.  BOW STREET RUNNER is designed to be historically accurate, and therefore the game’s content and its settings may not be suitable for younger players.”

This games video scene clips recorded using actors makes this series of interactive murder mystery adventures incredibly engaging, authentic and life like.  You actually feel you are seeing what London was like at the time.  The sound effects can be a little disturbing but add to the dark and sinister atmosphere of the gaming experience.  To pique your interest here’s a little trailer for the game:

While you explore the game looking for clues much in the way you play a standard point and click game there are plenty of opportunities for your learners to get some reading practice in as each clue is annotated with information on how the clue may be relevant to both the case and to how London was in the 1750s.  As you journey through the games playscape you come across various characters from the time who each have something to say regarding the case you are following.  You choose the direction of your enquiries and hear and read (there are subtitles) what each character has to say.  Finally you have to present your evidence to the magistrate by listening to his questions and putting forward the evidence you have built up over the course of your investigation.

How to use it with learners

I think this is very much an autonomous standalone game.  Either treat it as a reading activity in the computer room, where learners may use an online dictionary or you the teacher for language support, or seek to expose your learners to more English outside the classroom by suggesting it for homework.  If you choose the later then it may be a good  idea to introduce them to the game in the computer room.  Whichever option you choose you may also like to think about encouraging your learners to make a note of some of the more interesting / useful language that they come across.

Extra game support

There are 5 episodes in total and you may like to have access to the Bow Street Runners walkthrough for use with your learners in contact time or even give your learners the opportunity to have access to it from outside class time.

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Topic:  Jungle adventure

Language skill: Reading and online dictionary work

Game: Hetherdale the game Hetherdale the walkthrough

There is a mystery to solve and its your job as intrepid explorer Dr. Montrose to solve it.  Play the game as you read the story and find out the mystery surrounding the secret jungle city of Hetherdale.

Preparation

1. If you can show the video introduction in class and brainstorm a few ideas on what they think the story is about and what they think they will need to do in the game.
2. Tell them they are going to go online and use three internet explorer windows to 1) play a game using 2) a walkthrough and 3) an online dictionary when necessary.
3. What English words do they predict will be in the walkthrough.  What words do they predict that they don’t know the word in English for.  Get them to explain them to you to translate and write up on a board.

Preplay

In the computer room get them to open three internet explorer windows and direct them to this site.

They can use the links above the picture here to 1) play the game 2) find a walkthrough and for 3) they should find an online dictionary to use.  Ask them if they know any good ones.

Play

They can then play the game using the three internet explorer windows.  Your role is to monitor, help with language and make sure that each learner gets a turn to use the mouse to play the game.

Post Play

If they don’t complete the game in class then set it for homework.  It’s a bit risky to hope to continue the game next class.  Some learners may well go home and complete the game without you telling them to or not.  Next class you can ask learners to explain the story to you.  You can ask about:

Who was in it?

What part did they play in the game?

What locations were there?

What happened at each location?

What were the most difficult parts?

Was it a good story?  etc

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Location: Connected classroom

Skills Focus: Reading/ Watching/ Speaking

Video: 8-Bit Twilight Eclipse Interactive

If you teach teen girls and you haven’t heard of Twilight, no scratch that, if you have been living on planet Earth and you haven’t heard of Twilight then get with it.  This teen phenomenon that has swept the world is due to release its third film installment ‘Eclipse’.  To mark this momentous occasion in many a fans diary Digital Blog brings you a couple of fun video activities with a fun ‘game’ look and feel.

Preparation

1. Write on the board “Are you team Edward or team Jacob?” on the board.
2. Elicit an answer and brainstorm the titles of the books/ characters/ any of the plot details/ relationship with Bella Jacob & Edward.
3. Decide which of the two videos you’ll watch below (or which order if you are going to do both.
4. Tell the class they are going to watch some videos of a new ‘Eclipse’ game and they have to predict what the characters say.
5. Connect to this page and use the videos and letterscript below (double clicking on the videos will take you directly to the youtube site).

Play

1. Play the video.
2. Learners copy and expand on the letterscript.
3. Repeat as necessary.

Team Edward video

After your learners have watched the video ask them to expand on the ‘letter script’ below.  Each letter represents the first letter of a word and the symbols and numbers also represent a word.  Punctuation is punctuation.

e.g.  IW♥2BAV  = I would love to be a vampire.

Letterscript

Team Jacob video

After your learners have watched the video ask them to expand on the ‘letter script’ below.  Each letter represents the first letter of a word and the symbols and numbers also represent a word. Punctuation is punctuation.

e.g.  IW♥2BAW  = I would love to be a werewolf.

Letterscript

During both of the videos above there are moments when you are asked to make a choice between two decisions.  It’s a nice activity to pause the video at these points and ask the class which option they would choose and why.  You can then continue playing the video.

NOTE

You could always judge what your learners choose to expand their letters to on individual merit.  There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed to stray from the script if what they produce contains interesting language.

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Level: Primary

Location: Computer room

Topic: Nightmares

Language focus: Directions, prepositions & game vocabulary

Game: Victor’s nightmare

Victor suffers from nightmares and in order to get some restful night’s sleep he needs to learn how to face his fears and vanquish them.

Preparation

Download and a copy of Victor’s nightmare walkthrough.  Either print a copy for each pair in your class (a reading) or a single copy (relay dictation).

Pre-play

1. In the classroom do hangman for ‘nightmares‘ and brainstorm vocabulary onto the board.
2. Set up a relay dictation in the classroom with the Victor’s nightmare walkthrough that you downloaded.  Learner’s should take turns to relay the sentences.
3. Allow enough time for your learners to relay dictate a few sentences the take the walkthrough down.
4. Ask learners to pick up their dictation and take it to the computer room.

Play

1. Before your learners sit down put victor’s nightmare walkthrough on the wall and show your learners.
2. Explain to your learners they are going to play a game and use the walkthrough they copied to start the game.  When they have finished what they copied they can take turns (like they did in the classroom) to use the walkthrough on the wall.  This time they don’t have to write it down – they just tell their partner who plays the game.
3. First pair to finish are the champions.

Post Play

Back in the classroom learners use the Victor’s nightmare walkthrough to make a game dictionary.  After having played the game they should be able to visualise parts of the game using the walkthrough and be able to translate sections.

Alternative reading activity

1. Do the pre-play activity above.
2. Take your learners to the computer room and handout a copy of victor’s nightmare walkthrough to each pair.
3. Learners work in pairs with one playing the game and the other reading the walkthrough to them.
4. After 5 minutes say “change!” and get pairs to swap roles.
5. When first pair finishes get them to look some of the walkthrough words up in a dictionary OR do the game again from memory.

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Level: Primary

Location: Computer room

Language focus:  Has got/ is wearing/ colours/ clothes vocabulary/ physical descriptions/ parts of the body

Game: Hero machine

Preparation

1. Either play with heromachine  yourself and both write a physical description of the hero you produce and take a screenshot and print the hero OR download and print a copy of the Superhero Relay Play material (relay dictation text and superhero picture).
2. Read the set up at the bottom of this post.

Preplay

1. Play hangman with ’s u p e r h e r o’
2. Brainstorm some superheroes
3. Elicit some physical descriptions of some of the superheroes on the board (focus on some of the language focus items for this game)
4. Write the name of the superhero you have a picture of up on the board and elicit possible physical descriptions.
5. Learners do a relay dictation of the written description.

Play

1. In the computer room learners use the written description fro the relay dictation to reproduce the superhero.
2. When they have finished learners stand up and compare each superhero on each screen with the printed picture of the superhero.
3. Learners make their own superhero and write a description using the relay dictation text as a model.

Post play

1. Learners print their superheroes out (screen capture at school or at home) and put them on the classroom wall.
2. Taking it in turns they read out the description and others identify the picture.
3. Alternatively learners look at the pictures and predict the description.

How to play with Heromachine

You need to familiarise your learners with hero machine a little so you may either want to present the game in a connected classroom or direct learners through it in the computer room.

1 Choose a body template.  You could do this in the connected classroom by asking the class what you should choose.  e.g. a man or a woman?  Short or tall?

2 As soon as you choose one of the four templates you are given a few loading options.  For the full range of clothes, objects, weapons, companions and body parts etc choose the complete option (the one I usually choose).

3 When your option has loaded click on the little arrow to the right of the lower small window (the one on the bottom) on the right just below where it says ‘component and genre’.  This allows you to open up the different body parts, clothing etc.  Just click on one to add it to your superhero.  Use the slide bar underneath to see more.

4 Use the palette below to add details to the physical appearance of your superhero, access more details by using the slidebar and colour your superhero.  Usually each single detail you have has two aspects to it so you can have two or one colour for each detail you add to your superhero.  For example, you could have green trousers with red stripes.

5 Finally if you learners make any mistakes they just have to click on the item they want to change and then make the change.  This could be changing a hairstyle, clothing or the colour.  Have fun!

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Level: Intermediate.

Location: Connected classroom

Skills Focus: Reading

Game: Mcdonald’s video game

Calling itself a digital parody of Mcdonald’s, this game takes a very critical look at the process behind the fast food company.  If you’ve read or seen ’supersize me’ or ‘fast food nation’ then you should play this.

Preparation

Download a copy of the Mcdonald’s video game worksheet and make a copy of the first page for each pair of learners in your class.  The second page contains teachers’ notes.

Pre-task

1. Connect to the game in the class and set English as the language you want to play the game in (British flag).
2. Choose a volunteer to read ‘The Game’ introduction out.
3. Brainstorm vocabulary items from the 4 pictures to the left of the intro.
4. Click play and allow enough time for your learners to read the disclaimer and then ask them why they think that is included there and what does it say about the game.
5. Click continue and then hand out the worksheets.

Reading task

1. Explain the game is quite complicated and to play it well you need to read the tutorial.
2. Click on the tutorial.
3. Learners do the worksheet activities while you follow the instructions on the teachers’ notes page.

Post reading task

Learners play the game either in a computer room or for homework and then complete the last activity on the worksheet either back in the classroom or for homework.

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Skills focus: Listening & Reading

Location: Connected classroom/ computer room

Language Focus: Modals of Obligation

Game: State of Debate

“It’s the year 2020 and Just-Co have banned hoodies, and you’ve just been spotted wearing one. Can you talk your way out of trouble using your English Language skills?”

In this game you are spotted by a regulator (police) who approaches you and tells you about your crime in a video sequence.  You then have to read and choose from three options (written text) on how you deal with the situation and see how they react.  Other situations appear in the game like giving advice to a friend and trying to get into a disco past a bouncer.

Preparation.

• If you are doing this in the computer room treat it as an autonomous listening & reading activity.  As you monitor help learners understand the game’s language content.  The colleague who showed me this game had his learners play the game as a reader/ listener.
• Presentation on modal verbs of permission and obligation if you are doing this in a connected classroom as an open class activity.

Play

NOTE There is a button on the bottom left hand side that provides you with subtitles for the video sequences in the game.

1. Play the video intro and ask a few concept questions such as “When is it set?”, “What crimes are there?”, “What sort of government is it?”
2. Divide the class into pairs.  They watch the video sequence and should ask their partner 3 wh- questions.
3. They then read and discuss what option they should choose before taking a class vote.
4. They watch the video sequence that shows a reaction to their choice and learners repeat from step 2.
5. Play the game for as long as you think is necessary.

Post activity

• Discuss in class which were the best ways to deal with each situation.
• The situations in the game may be extreme but what are the unwritten rules and regulations affecting young people today.  Discuss.
• Write their own rules and regulations for adults.
• Write a role play between a ‘regulator’ and an adult breaking the law.

Homework activity

• Learners write a composition about advice they give to friends, dress codes or laws and regulations that effect them as young people but not the adults.
• If learners didn’t finish the game in class they could continue at home.  You could ask them to take notes using a simple table:

There is also a ’save’ button which I’ve never used so in theory you could save a game and come back to it in later classes.  Whatever you choose to do I hope you enjoy playing the game.

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Level: Intermediate & above

Location: Computer room

Topic: Reading and dictionary work

Language Focus: Non defining relative clauses

Game: Anika’s Odyssey

This is a fun walkthrough reading activity for the computer room followed by a writing activity using non defining relative clauses.  You may also choose to do some recording vocabulary work during the game so that they have some language to work on when they return to the classroom.

Pre Play

Once you have done a presentation on non defining relative clauses (yawn!) tell your learners they have worked very well and that they are now going to go to the computer room to play a game (hooray!).  Good news is they will enjoy it a lot and there is a walkthrough to help them.  Bad news is that they have to make a note of any words in blue that they don’t know.  For this reason they need a pen/ pencil and notebook.

Play

1 Tell learners to open up two internet explorer pages.

2 In one internet explorer page direct learners to this site.

3 Learners copy and paste the address into the other internet explorer page.

4 Learners play the game on one page and read the walkthrough in the other.

5 Monitor to make sure they are playing taking notes of difficult language.

6 Stop the game when one team finishes playing and has got ten words noted down (slow them down by getting them to write down more and with a translation).

Post Play

Learners write ten non-defining relative clause sentences using words from the game.

Learners take it in turns to read out their non-defining relative clause sentences but NOT the word from the game.

The first learner to put their hand up and say the correct word from the game gets a point.

When you feel the activity has gone on long enough declare a winner.

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Location: Computer room

Skills focus: Reading

Game: Treasure of Big Totem

PREPARATION

Two possibilities:

1 CLASSROOM - Print off a copy of the story and read the tale in class.  Learners predict the most important elements of the story needed to play the game and underline them.  They then use dictionaries to check up any difficult vocabulary.

2 COMPUTER ROOM – Learners open three explorer windows (the game, the Tale of the Treasure of Big Totem, and an online dictionary)

PLAY

Learners read “The tale of the Treasure of Big Totem” and play the game as a comprehension check.

POST PLAY

Focus on language elements in the Tale that are unfamiliar to your learners.  Having played the game they may now be able to make educated guesses at the meaning.  If you all have a copy of the Tale ask your learners questions about the language.  e.g.

What’s a spade?”

“What’s a pick axe?”

“The spade was leaning against the totem.  What does leaning against mean?”

“What did you do with the rope?”

HOMEWORK

Learners write out a walkthrough.

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Level:  Advanced / Proficiency

Location: Computer room / homework

Language skill: Reading

The Game:  Avalon is a text based role playing fantasy adventure game based on Dungeons and dragons, the stories of Tolkien and the Ancient Greek myths.  You read the story and make choices in the fantasy world as they are made available to you (e.g. how to interact with in-game characters, what directions to go in, which quests to take).  The choices you make will effect how the story unfolds and how your game character develops.  An example of an Avalon screenshot is on the right here.  You have the main body of text, a tool bar on the right and a blue window at the bottom to type in your choices/ instructions and interactions with the in game characters.

Preparation

Ask your students to access Avalon home page outside of class time.

They will have to think of a fictional name for their character and a password to be able to save their progress and access their game elsewhere and at a later date.

Activity

Once your learners have created their characters you can use this game in a number of ways:

1 A quiet reading activity – Sometimes computer room activities can seem like too much work and too little quiet time.  Use the computer room as an opportunity for learners to ‘play’ the game while having you on hand to answer any language queries.

2 A fast finishers activity.  Sometimes learners may finish a computer room activity earlier than their class mates.  Setting aAvalon as a reading task means that they do not disrupt the computer room activity for others and they are also getting reading skills practice.

3 Online dictionary work – the Avalon text contains a lot of examples of language used for dramatic effect.  As a result a lot of vocabulary may be unfamiliar to your learners.  Learners can read the text with the help of an online dictionary to help them reach a deeper understanding of the text.

4 Recording language – Learners can record useful language themselves making a note of the word(s), marking the stress, the word form (adjective, verb, noun etc), example sentences using the new word(s), and a definition in English.

5 Recorded language activities – Any language that has been recorded in the game can be used in classroom activities such as word formation (recording other forms of the recorded word(s) i.e. its verb form, noun form, adverb form etc)

6 Diary keeping/ report making – Learners can keep a diary or make reports (possibly posted on a class blog) of the choices, direction and progress they have made in the game.  This is helpful if learners wish to exchange help, tips, advice and game observations.

7 Presentation – Learners can give class presentations on their in game progress using any game notes they have made.  This can serve to help others, or gain help from others and makes the reading experience more interactive, interesting and integrated.

8 Periphery reading – There are a number of online sites that offer information about the game including a wiki which includes links to lists of in-game creatures, characters, places, potions etc, as well as other resources.

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