Flight To Freedom is a new online game about the Underground Railroad that came online today. You have to register to play (it’s easy to do so), and it’s designed in the “choose your own adventure” genre.
It’s part of Mission US, which is funded by the Corporation For Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment For The Humanities.
This new game joins a long list of “choose your own adventure” games where players take the role of an escaped slave on the Underground Railroad. Others include:
I’ve previously written about how I use online video games as a language-development activity for my ELL students. Here are two new games, along with links to their walkthroughs (instructions on how to complete the game), that look good. Be sure to click “English” on both of them:
If you want to get more ideas on how to use these kinds of games with ELLs, be sure to check out the blog, Digital Play, by Graham Stanley and Kyle Mawer and their book of the same name.
I posted The Best Online Learning Games Of 2011 — So Far over the summer. I haven’t seen any new games since that time that are worthy of being on a “The Best…” list, so that post will serve as the final versions for this year.
The websites on this list were not designed with education in mind, but which can easily be used for learning purposes — particularly, though not exclusively, for English language development. I only hope that creators of “educational” content can learn from the qualities that make these sites so engaging.
This is video is from a “talent” show in India. You would only want to show it to a class that you would be sure were mature enough not to be inspired to go out and try some of the stunts:
Five thousand people from Grand Rapids, Michigan came together to create what Roger Ebert has called “the greatest music video ever made.” And it is, indeed, pretty amazing. It was shot in one take. Even though the song’s lyrics are probably not the best for English Language Learners, the video itself would be a lot of fun.
Here’s a video of The Great Escape — Panda style:
This is a video of Remi Gaillard, known as France’s greatest prankster:
Luke Burrage juggles around the world in this clip:
Check out this Stop-motion animation and drumstick music video:
How about this surfing bulldog:
Show this next video, but only if you don’t think your students will be inspired to try some of the stunts themselves!
“Bridge” is a short and delightful animation that is perfect to show English Language Learners (in fact, to any students) and then have them write and discuss it. It’s a great opportunity for them to literally describe what they see, plus incorporating the messages of the film. As its creator says:
Bridge is a story about four animal characters trying to cross a bridge, but ending up as obstacles to one another in the process. The moral behind this story revolves around how there are often disagreements or competing paths in life, and the possible results of pride, obstinance, and compromise.
Inspector Kloo 4 is another fun online video game that offers a great opportunity for English language learning. You can find its walkthrough (instructions on how to win) here.
Inspector Kloo 5 is a fun online video game that offers a great opportunity for English language learning. You can find its walkthrough (instructions on how to win) here.
Smurf Yourself lets you choose and dress a Smurf, record it saying something, and then send or post it on blog or website. No registration is required. It’s a fun and simple way for students to practice their English.
Draw a Stickman is an amazing adventure where you…draw a stick and he comes to life. You’re given instructions about what to draw and when, and then the stickman uses what you have drawn. It’s an excellent language learning opportunity for ELL’s and fun for everybody. You can also write your own message that shows at the end of the activity.
There are many “adventure” and “escape the room” online video games that, at first glance, might not appear to have much educational value. However, if you look a little closer, a number of them can be a gold mine for engaging language-development activities. Many “gamers” on the web create what are called “walkthroughs” for these games — written step by step instructions on how to “beat” them. Teachers can divide students into pairs, give them copies of walkthrough, and you’re unlikely to find another English reading and speaking where you will find more engagement. Though class “winners” might be the first five pairs to get through the entire game, you’ll find that students, particularly boys, will love getting ahead of others and then stop to help their classmates so they can show off their video game-playing prowess.
I wrote an article a few years ago about using these games with students, and I’ve posted about quite a few of them over the years, and thought it would be useful to bring them together into one list. I’ve only included ones here that I believe have a decent chance of not being blocked by school content filters.
Here are The Best “Fun” Online Video Games For English Language Development:
The same creators of the last game also have an excellent seventeen part series of games called Esklavos, several which have come out in the past year. You can find the Walkthroughs to the series here. That same Walkthrough page also has links to all the games, but because I think it’s more likely that the site featuring the walkthroughs will be blocked by school content filters, I’m going to list direct links to all the games here (except for the first one, which is in Spanish only):
I’ve written extensively about how I use online video games with English Language Learners. They’re great language-development activities when students play them by following “walkthroughs” (instructions on how to “win”). Here are four new ones, along with their walkthroughs:
The BBC has recently added some new games to their Schools website. They’re good, but I wouldn’t necessarily say they are their best, so I won’t be adding them to any of my “The Best…” lists. They do provide some audio for the text, though, so they could also be engaging to English Language Learners:
Draw a Stickman is an amazing adventure where you…draw a stick and he comes to life. You’re given instructions about what to draw and when, and then the stickman uses what you have drawn. It’s an excellent language learning opportunity for ELL’s and fun for everybody.
As regular readers know, I write a lot about using online learning games with students. In fact, if you go to my page listing all 760 “The Best…” lists you’ll see many under “Games.”
But Canadian secondary Social Studies teacher Mike Farley has gone far beyond my sharing of games. He writes a blog where he lists the links to fifteen excellent Social Studies-related games. That’s nice, but you can find those links in my “The Best…” lists. But what Mike also shares in his blog are student hand-outs for all those games. I don’t think you’ll find these kinds of resources anywhere else on the Web, and they’re a gold mine! Even if you don’t want to use some of them, they are excellent models that can be easily modified.
Go check them out, and I think Mike has earned a big thank you from all of us for creating those materials and sharing them with the rest of us.
Find The Future is a fascinating online game from The New York Public Library.
I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, but I played long enough to be able to say it is indeed fascinating. After a quick registration process, you pick an “artifact” from the library. Each artifact has a very engaging interactive display sharing information about it. Then you a given an unusual writing prompt related to the artifact, and you have to write a story. There’s more to it than that, but it is intriguing and accessible.
The big drawback that I see to it, though, is that though your stories are saved, it appears that only participants in the game can read them. In other words, you can’t post a link to it elsewhere that would allow people to read it without registration. At least, it doesn’t appear to me that you can — please let me know if I’m missing something.
Again, there’s more to the game than what I’ve written, but it is definitely worth a visit.
I usually just do year-end lists many topics, but it gets a little crazy having to review all of my zillion posts at once. So, to make it easier for me — and perhaps, to make it a little more useful to readers — I’m going to start publishing mid-year lists, too. These won’t be ranked, unlike my year-end “The Best…” lists, and just because a site appears on a mid-year list doesn’t guarantee it will be included in an end-of-the-year one. But, at least, I won’t have to review all my year’s posts in December…
The websites on this list were not designed with education in mind, but which can easily be used for learning purposes — particularly, though not exclusively, for English language development. I only hope that creators of “educational” content can learn from the qualities that make these sites so engaging.
Five thousand people from Grand Rapids, Michigan came together to create what Roger Ebert has called “the greatest music video ever made.” And it is, indeed, pretty amazing. It was shot in one take. Even though the song’s lyrics are probably not the best for English Language Learners, the video itself would be a lot of fun.
Here’s a video of The Great Escape — Panda style:
This is a video of Remi Gaillard, known as France’s greatest prankster:
Here’s one of “Botaoshi: The wacky Japanese sport of pole pull-down”:
Luke Burrage juggles around the world in this clip:
Check out this Stop-motion animation and drumstick music video:
This is an interesting sport called Sepak takraw:
How about this surfing bulldog:
Show this next video, but only if you don’t think your students will be inspired to try some of the stunts themselves!
“Bridge” is a short and delightful animation that is perfect to show English Language Learners (in fact, to any students) and then have them write and discuss it. It’s a great opportunity for them to literally describe what they see, plus incorporating the messages of the film. As its creator says:
Bridge is a story about four animal characters trying to cross a bridge, but ending up as obstacles to one another in the process. The moral behind this story revolves around how there are often disagreements or competing paths in life, and the possible results of pride, obstinance, and compromise.
Inspector Kloo 4 is another fun online video game that offers a great opportunity for English language learning. You can find its walkthrough (instructions on how to win) here.
Inspector Kloo 5 is a fun online video game that offers a great opportunity for English language learning. You can find its walkthrough (instructions on how to win) here.
Smurf Yourself lets you choose and dress a Smurf, record it saying something, and then send or post it on blog or website. No registration is required. It’s a fun and simple way for students to practice their English.
Spellzone is a new interactive site to learn and practice…spelling. It has practice activities, games, and I especially like that the words are grouped based on spelling patterns — plus, they have audio, too! The only negative, and it’s a big one, is that the words are not used in sentences.
I’ve used board games when teaching English Language Learners, and students have particularly enjoyed it when they’ve made their own.
When I was cruising the Web recently, just by chance I found that there were sites that had lots of free downloadable templates for ESL games. Many of you probably knew that already, but it was a surprise to me. They could certainly come in handy at times, especially as models for students designing their own.
Here are some of the best sites I saw, and I welcome additional suggestions:
