Korean Job Discussion Forums

[molotovwars]

I am currently taking a TEFL course through KEISEI and need to write a professional paper for the course. The topic I have chosen is "Using Games to Teach Language"

I wanted to get people's thoughts on the topic and how they use games in the classroom, along with their benefits and other information. Forum posts are great and they may give me some ideas, but if you have any resources or links that would be great! I have one blog that talks about different games the teacher used and his thoughts on using games.

If anyone has resources like the above one, even if its just a blog or anything else, even a site with some games and descriptions that would be great. I know there is a lot of crap out there and a lot of it filled with ads and clutter, but hopefully this community can help me find some good material.

Thanks!

[Fishead soup]

Games are used to reinforce language already covered in the class.
Some typical games commonly used are.

Chinese Whispers- Teams compete to send a message from one side of the class to another.

Jeopardy- Teams compete to earn points by answering skill testing questions.

Reverse Jeopardy- Answers are given and students guess questions.

Blindfolded students walkes around classroom desk maze. Other students direct him/her using target language.

Speed quiz- AKA taboo- Two students stand in class facing students. Teacher writes mystery word on blackboard. Students give hints in English about mystery words. Students at the front try to guess mystery word.

Dictation races- Teacher pastes paragraph at front of the room.Break class in teams. Each team has one writer and several runners teams compete to rewrite article

there are many more.

[jlb]

I have a blog with lots of games and thoughts about teaching at a uni in Korea:

www.eslteacherinkorea.blogspot.com

[BS.Dos.]

[cubanlord]

[lifeinkorea]

I thought you guessed the questions in regular Jeopardy, so reverse Jeopardy would just be the normal answering of questions. Either way, no need for the word "reverse". It's like a double negative.

[Fishead soup]

[greasypeanut]

in the REAL jeopardy, as in the game show. the host gives the answer and the contestants give the question.

[Goku]

[iggyb]

In Korea, the admin at my school and some parents hated it, but I did a lot with board games with dice and play money and vocabulary/phrase flashcards.

The adults hated it because it wasn't "totally English" or "immersion" because I'd use corresponding Korean words on one side. It didn't matter that the idea of "immersion" when you only spend 40 minutes to an hour at the school is nonsense...

Anyway --- I'd invent new ways to play, but the basics of it were that each time the student had a turn, they'd have to know the word -- had to tell me the English word in three quick seconds or so -- then I'd give them some time to use it in a sentence - and be rewarded or sometimes penalized based on the quality of their answer.

So basically, it was a way to drill vocabulary/phrases/idioms and grammar points - especially verb tenses which I stress often.

The best way was to have Monopoly money or some other form of play money and pay the students based on the quality of their answer.

This way, I could also adjust rewards based on the level of the student - for example, giving a student with lower ability more money for a better effort or encouraging a higher student to push themselves by holding them up to a higher standard - making them make better sentences or make compound sentences or reward them for having correct clauses that made their sentence longer - if they were to get the same amount of money I'd give the lower student for a more simple sentence.

...and somewhat surprisingly, students didn't often get bitchy about the double standard.

Sometimes I'd keep track of how much money they made and at the end of the month, have a "store" where they could buy things - like notebooks or colored pencils or stickers and so on - with the play money they'd earned.

[ddeubel]

This article will help you out. I have it in a nice colorful ppt but can't seem to find it anymore! Nice list.

http://www.thegamegroup.com/article1.htm

DD
http://eflclassroom.com

[molotovwars]

Thank you for all of the insight and suggestions so far. jlb I will take a look at your blog and see what I can use from it or what ideas it might give me.

I also wanted to share a blog I had been directed to, which first led me to choose this topic.

http://kimchi-icecream.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-foreign-english-instructorsteachers.html

New Foreign English Instructors/Teachers in Korea -- What to do when your co-teacher doesn't show up for class.

[Fishead soup]

[jlb]

I should have mentioned this in the first post. Here are all the posts about games, so you don't have to sift through the rest:

http://eslteacherinkorea.blogspot.com/search/label/game