Playing the Game in an ESL class: Heart of Tota

     Involving games in a language class could be considered as an effective and interesting way to help students learn a language better, especially some digital games which are available online. Through these games, students are able to raise their interests in participating and practicing.

     I tried an online game names Heart of Tota. This is an adventure game which could lead students to keep exploring on an island to look for a rare artifact, "Heart of Tota".

     I played this game for twice. During playing this game, I felt that this game is easy to control since I just need to use my mouse to click on items to collect and directions to go. Through this games, students will be able to learn some new vocabulary and phrases since they are required to collect items such as tools to help them during their exploration. In addition, students will gain the ability of giving directions with the assistance of their teachers.

     During playing the game, it would be reasonable to consider the teacher as an instructor and monitor. Firstly, teachers could go through the instruction with the whole class, for example, asking students to read the instruction together, and provide more details to students if they are confused. This is a good opportunity for students to practice their reading and speaking skills as well as their comprehension competence. Also, teachers could show an example of how to play this game before letting students play by themselves to make sure that students are on the right track. In order to make sure that all students are actively involved, it may be better if teachers could divide students into teams and ask them to compete with each other by counting times they spend and checking times that they click until they find the "Heart of Tota". In order to assess if the learning objectives have been met, teachers could prepare a small quiz which includes vocabulary appears in this game. Additionally, teachers could ask each team to write down their own walkthroughs, and then check the provided walkthroughs with students together, especially the learning objectives are related to vocabulary and giving directions.

     From my own experience, I would like to say that having games in class is a good method to not only raise students' interests but also help students develop their own learning abilities through letting students explore by themselves.

Performance Indicator-ESL.E.2-4.1.1.3
Students select information appropriate to the purpose of the investigation, and relate ideas from one written or spoken source to another.