Games in Education

Games and Simulations in Education

For half of my day I teach a 3-hour adult ESL class.  Students’ goal in this class is to pass the Casas reading test and increase their overall English skills so they can start taking GED courses.  For the first 30 minutes of class students study grammar skills using a computer program called Skills Tutor.  Skills Tutor is very educational but can be boring after some time.  Currently the students are learning about the differences between antonyms, synonyms and homonyms.  On 2/27/14 students played the game Word Frog for a warm-up activity instead of using Skills Tutor and it was a huge success.  Students voiced their excitement about how fun the game was and that they learned new words.  In the process they also demonstrated the difference between antonyms, synonyms and homonyms by completing all the levels in the game.  I found this game when I was reviewing Joseph Wollenburg’s blog (Thanks Joe).  

Link to Game:   http://www.abcya.com/antonyms_synonyms_homonyms.htm

Mini Lesson Plan

Purpose:

To be able to identify the difference between antonyms, synonyms and homonyms and introduce new vocabulary words. 

Assess learner outcomes:

All students start out with identifying synonyms.  Once students have earned their certificate for completing all six synonym they show the teacher they have completed a section.  Once this is done students can move on to the antonyms section.  The process is then repeated again when students move to homonyms. 

Change in Lesson Plan:

The original lesson included students using a vocabulary computer program called skills tutor.  In skills tutor there are no games, students are challenged through reading passages and then answering questions. Instead of using Skills Tutor for a warm-up activity I used Word Frog.  The smartboard was used to demonstrate how to play the game.  This was helpful because many students came late to class so I ended up repeating myself.  Eventually I just stood up by the smartboard and when a student walked into class we would play level one together before they worked individually.  Students could only use laptops to play this game because Ipad devices do not support Adobe Flash Player.