By Chris Haines
The topic for the first #EAPchat of Year 2 is with regards to gaming within the EAP curriculum. A couple of considerations have come to mind:
- Delta Publishing put out an ELTON award-winning title in 2011 by Kyle Mawer & Graham Stanley, “Digital Play“, which provides suggestions on how to use video games and web games in the language learning classroom.
- Many of my male students have cited playing video games for hours into the late night/wee morning as the reason why they can’t focus on study in the morning. This correlates with a study by Pew Internet Research (2003) on college student videogaming behaviour.
- Schools, both K-12 (“Schools use video games as teaching tools“) and college/university (“How 10 Colleges Are Using Game-Based Learning Right Now“), around the world claim benefits to using video games with their students to facilitate content learning and academic skills.
- Adam Simpson wrote a post about using games in the classroom (“Why Use Games in the Language Classroom“).
- Crystal Rose brought an infographic on “The Gaming of Education” into the conversation.
#EAPchat transcript is here.
For everyone reading this, in the comments perhaps you could discuss:
- Your ideas regarding the links mentioned above
- Video games you’ve used with students
- Other games you use in class
- Upsides/pitfalls/skills practiced/EAP or General adaptations
Otherwise, here’s a blog challenge for you:
Write a post about a game that you use with your classes that has always been a pedagogical crowd-pleaser! Please link your post into the comments.
#EAPchat 