Learning can be fun: playing games in ESL classroom

Playing games doesn't always mean wasting time. It can be entertaining as well as educational especially in learning languages. The purpose of using games in language learning is to put students into more practical environments. Larry Ferlazzo proposes that walkthroughs, instructions written by game players to help others to finish the task step by step, also plays an important role in the learning process.

I played a game called Anna Hospital Recovery. It is a game that helps students to learn surgery vocabularies. Anna is injured and the player needs to be the doctor and gives her treatment. 

There is a list of the steps you need to do. After finishing each step, there will be a check mark on the list. For example, I cleaned her wounds, the fourth step "Disinfect" was then checked.

     

I found this game very interesting. I played three times. The first time I actually didn't pay attention to the words carefully since I was attracted by the pictures and background sounds. I just followed the instruction given by the finger on the screen. The second time, I was aware of the words on the list and tried to make each step with the word. The last time, I made dialogues with Anna. Though seems crazy, it actually is a way of reviewing the words.

Revised Part:

The learning objective of this game is to use meaning clues and language structure to expand vocabulary (pictures,background knowledge,context clues) (According to Michigan State Standards). 

I believe this game helps students focus on vocabulary learning. It not only provides students the connection of physical items and abstract words, but also shows how the words can be applied in practical situations. Moreover, as the game uses the well-known character among children, it is more attractive to students. Teacher can develop more possibilities from this game. If I had a chance of using this game in my future class, I would request my students to make dialogues or tell a story of the steps. 

In this game, I think the walkthrough is embedded in the game. There is a finger pointing at the thing needed to finish this step. After it is completed, this step on the checklist would be marked. It's more direct than other games like treasure searching. It is suitable for lower level learners. 

To examine the extent to which the students actually learn, I can design other forms of assessment such as quizzes or matching questions.