RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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What are the best card and board games for teaching English as a Second Language?
-- the game should have lots of opportunities to use language;
-- routine and repetitive expressions are great but so is creative language use;
-- the game should not be too violent or likely to get too many parents upset;
-- word games are easy to sell to teachers but they really only reinforce vocabulary knowledge (still, I'd like to hear your ideas here too).
Are we talking about kid or adults here? RPG involve a whole lot of conversation; thus strong conversation skills.
Taboo: A game where you cannot say any of the words on the card, yet have to give enough clues for your partner to guess. Is a good game; but might be very hard for those from another country as it relies much on common knowledge of those from the U.S.; thus, a card might have Bill Cosby as the subject; and taboo words are somethign like; Huckstable, Fat Albert and so on. This card would be difficult as neither the guesser nor the clue giver know the person. Is a great game though, but you may have to pull some of the cards.
Trivial Pursuit; many editions; so good reading skills; lots of variety of subjects so many words used to increase vocabulary.
I dont think any of these type games would be good for a school activity though you might be able to use the premise or basic foundation of the game to make it worthwhile in the classroom.
For roleplaying; I would stay away from fantasy settings as many people dont have the background to do an in depth gamer rpg. I would suggest something like "How to Host a Murder" which is a game where you play a person and act out the parts of a 'who-done-it' that most people can easily identify with and enjoy.
If your class was such that they would go for the fantasy genre; I would start with "choose your own adventure" books. This might be good for individual study; but get them ready as a primer for a live, conversational rpg. And could be used to give the format so when they play an rpg; they know what kind of options are available. You could even write you own as a powerpoint; I could even write one for you. It could be as simple as:
You are a young knight from the Kingdom of Candor. You are skilled at riding, diplomacy, and knightly combat. You have a knighty steed, are wearing chainmal armor and have a sword and lance. In your packs you have one weeks worth of food; two blankets; and some grain for your horse. You have money worth 20 peices of gold.
next page:
Farmers from the Village of Clover have complained to the king that some mythical beast is killing their livestock, tearing up their field and several children are missing. The king has dispatched you to find the children and find this beast and solve the mystery.
Then you start the choices:
Talk to the deligation of from the Village of Clover
Go to the Village of Clover
an on and on; you could use the same premise for a rogue character; a wizard character; and so on.
What are the best card and board games for teaching English as a Second Language?
-- the game should have lots of opportunities to use language;
-- routine and repetitive expressions are great but so is creative language use;
-- the game should not be too violent or likely to get too many parents upset;
-- word games are easy to sell to teachers but they really only reinforce vocabulary knowledge (still, I'd like to hear your ideas here too).
What about Once Upon a Time? It's a collaborative storytelling game where each player gets cards with words for characters, items, places, and descriptors, as well as a endings, and the goal is to incorporate all of those terms/ideas into the story. It could teach some vocabulary (there are also blank cards so you can add your own terms) but it would primarily encourage creative language use, and at most, violence is along the lines of endings like "And the evil-doers were thrown down a well."
I have played that game; what I dont like about it is how you interupt other players all the time. You get some cards dealt to you and begin the story; when someone mentions something either on your card or the picture; you interupt and take over the story or someone does it to you; as your trying to get rid of your cards; it can be just a big interuption fest and your story ends up pretty lame; just my thoughts; but can be good with the right crowd; to many type A personalities can ruin it though.
I have played that game; what I dont like about it is how you interupt other players all the time. You get some cards dealt to you and begin the story; when someone mentions something either on your card or the picture; you interupt and take over the story or someone does it to you; as your trying to get rid of your cards; it can be just a big interuption fest and your story ends up pretty lame; just my thoughts; but can be good with the right crowd; to many type A personalities can ruin it though.
Fair point—I know someone who adapted it for her Spanish classroom, and will ask her how she managed the interruptions to avoid conflict.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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I have played that game; what I dont like about it is how you interupt other players all the time. You get some cards dealt to you and begin the story; when someone mentions something either on your card or the picture; you interupt and take over the story or someone does it to you; as your trying to get rid of your cards; it can be just a big interuption fest and your story ends up pretty lame; just my thoughts; but can be good with the right crowd; to many type A personalities can ruin it though.Fair point—I know someone who adapted it for her Spanish classroom, and will ask her how she managed the interruptions to avoid conflict.
A student introduced me to Once Upon A Time. (I occasionally give my ESL students an opportunity to teach the class. This was one of those days.) It worked out quite well. I've thought about using it or something similar.
I'm thinking about gathering a lot of Gamemastery Cards and making a similar game or bunch of games out of them. That would actually work out quite well.
The only problem is the future teachers I show them too would want to buy the deck I pieced together not separate packs and build a deck themselves.
Something for me to think about. Thanks Judy.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
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Are we talking about kid or adults here? RPG involve a whole lot of conversation; thus strong conversation skills.
Taboo: A game where you cannot say any of the words on the card, yet have to give enough clues for your partner to guess. Is a good game; but might be very hard for those from another country as it relies much on common knowledge of those from the U.S.; thus, a card might have Bill Cosby as the subject; and taboo words are somethign like; Huckstable, Fat Albert and so on. This card would be difficult as neither the guesser nor the clue giver know the person. Is a great game though, but you may have to pull some of the cards.
Trivial Pursuit; many editions; so good reading skills; lots of variety of subjects so many words used to increase vocabulary.
I dont think any of these type games would be good for a school activity though you might be able to use the premise or basic foundation of the game to make it worthwhile in the classroom.
For roleplaying; I would stay away from fantasy settings as many people dont have the background to do an in depth gamer rpg. I would suggest something like "How to Host a Murder" which is a game where you play a person and act out the parts of a 'who-done-it' that most people can easily identify with and enjoy.
If your class was such that they would go for the fantasy genre; I would start with "choose your own adventure" books. This might be good for individual study; but get them ready as a primer for a live, conversational rpg. And could be used to give the format so when they play an rpg; they know what kind of options are available. You could even write you own as a powerpoint; I could even write one for you. It could be as simple as:
You are a young knight from the Kingdom of Candor. You are skilled at riding, diplomacy, and knightly combat. You have a knighty steed, are wearing chainmal armor and have a sword and lance. In your packs you have one weeks worth of food; two blankets; and some grain for your horse. You have money worth 20 peices of...
Thanks again Valegrim.
"How to Host a Murder" sounds interesting. I'll have to check that out.
Trivia questions and games where students have to give clues to words are easy for teachers to make themselves. I use both regularly but never used published sets.
How to host a murder; comes in box sets. I have two of them; so basically two stories with background and whatnot. There are also other versions of stuff like this; I have heard my friends talk about them for house parties; maybe I can find out some other types.