Ethics game results

In a previous post I mentioned how I have students pass around the Slash doll when they hear each other speaking Spanish. 
Then I thought about that: students policing each other...it sounded a bit Nazi-ish to me.  I wondered if the students would have a problem ratting each other out.

I had invented a few new games to help my students review grammar (also detailed in another post), but they all require cards with the names of the grammar points and the example sentences.  Since my philosohphy is to have the students do as much of the preparation work as possible (they have to learn English, I don't), I had them prepare the cards.  The problem was, I knew it would take a while and I knew it might be kind of boring.

So I added these instructions:

TRY TO FIND OUT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR CLASSMATES AND INCLUDE THIS INFORMATION IN YOUR SENTENCES.  FOR EACH SENTENCE ABOUT A CLASSMATE, YOU GET 2 EXTRA POINTS, BUT IF A SPY CATCHES YOU, YOU LOSE ALL OF THE SENTENCES YOU HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT YOUR CLASSMATES UP UNTIL THAT POINT.

YOU ARE ALSO A SPY.  IF SOMEONE TALKS DIRECTLY TO YOU, YOU CANNOT RAT THEM OUT BUT YOU CAN RAT OUT OTHER PEOPLE IF YOU SEE THEM COMMUNICATING.  FOR EVERY PERSON YOU RAT OUT TO ME, YOU GET 5 EXTRA POINTS.

I was curious to see if and how the students would try to communicate, and if and how they would "rat each other out". 

As it happened, two girls immediately began ratting out their classmates.  But then everybody got smart: instead of asking each other for information, they simply started writing information they already knew, like "X is taller than Y". 

Then one guy took it a step further with sentences like: "Everyone in this class is shorter than me."  I saw where this was going, and sure enough he did not disappoint.  He eventually came up with a sentence beginning with "Everyone at this university..."

I thought the students had brilliant responses to the ethical conundrum I had set.

Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly the game I had envisioned.  What I wanted to do was my game "Factory Line" (see my blog for June 7, 2014) the aim of which was to have my students try to get to know each other better.  Because of the parameters I had set and the sneaky way they got around it to be more ethical, that didn't happen.

Lesson: Never underestimate how ethical my sudents really are. 

Games for grammar review

STEP 1

Have students work individually.  For each structure write the name of structure on one card and three cards with examples (with the structure underlined).  Repeat this for all of the structures you need to review.

STEP 2

Game 1: Memory: 18 structure cards + 18 example cards

Instructions: place all cards face down.  Take turns to flip over two cards.  If they match (structure-example) the player keeps the pair and continues.  The player with the most cards wins.

Game 2: Gin: only example cards

Instructions:  Start by dealing 5 cards to each player. Place the rest of the cards face down on the table.  On each turn a player may discard one card and pick another up from the pile.  The winner is the first player to get 5 examples of the same structure

Game 3: Card game: only structure cards + books

The deck is face down on the desk.  Turn the card over.  The first player to find an example of the structure in a book keeps the card.  The winner is the player with the most cards at the end.  

Know what's in my ss heads

The most dangerous word a teacher can use is "they", as in "they enjoyed the class" or "they understood the material".
There shoudl be no such thing as a geberal "they".  Innstead the focus should be on each and every individual learner: "What did Maria learn?  What did Pedro have trouble with?".

Of course every teacher thinks that they've answered that question only to find nasty surprises when deadlines and tests come around and they find that not all of "them" do well.

I'm no exception.

This term I vow to try harder to do better: to be more aware of what's going on in every student's head at every minute of every lesson.

Impossible, you say?  Teachers do at least six impossible things every day!  

Enforcement-free English only

I can either be teacher or "cop", not both.  Alfie Kohn points out that one major flaw with a system of rewards and punishments is that if it's to be enforced, you have to be vigilant.  That cuts into my teaching time.  If I have one student with a legitimate question and one student speaking his mother tongue instead of English, I don't want to be diving my attention.

Fortunately, an idea a friend gave me a long time ago got buried in my subconcious and finally resurfaced the other day. 
I have a little doll that's supoosed to look like Slash, the rock guitarist (a long-time crush of mine).  If I hear someone speaking Spanish, I simply put Slash on that student's desk.  Then I step back.  If that student hears someone else speak Spanish, he gives the doll to her.  Whoever has Slash at the end of the period loses a point off their final grade. 
Now I don't have to be cop.

Of, course, they're now policing each other, and as we all saw in the Harry Potter stories, that's not exactly a sweet thing either... 

What capoeira taught me

As a Jewish child, every Passover I was taught that we had been slave in Egypt for four hundred years.  Despite the rich traditions surrounding the storytelling, the concept of slavery meant little to me. 

As a teenager, I read Harriet Jacob's "Incidents in the life of a slave girl" and I was moved to tears.

As a twenty-something in Latin America, I decided to learn capoeira, an athletic, dance-inspired Brazilian martial-art done to music.  I learned that, unlike the more severe martial arts of the Far East, capoeira was not an upper-class military activity.  It was preparation for a slave revolt.  It was disguised as dance to make the overlords think "Oh, how sweet, the slaves are dancing".  In reality it was practice for a fight to death or freedom.  To disguise it even further, it is traditionally performed inside a human circle.

Then I learned capoeira angola.  Instead of energetic high kicks and acrobatics, this version was slower and closer to the ground.
The performers of capoeira angola had worn leg irons.

Suddenly the brutal dehumanization of slavery hit me in the gut.  I understood slavery from the inside.  That feeling of raw empathy has stayed with me.

That is the power of games.  When you hear about an injustice, you understand it intellectually and move on.  When you read a first-hand account, you feel sympathy.  But when you experience the injustice through the mechanics of a well-designed game, you come to understand the true horror of having your freedom curtailed, if only for a fraction of a second.  But it stays with you.

I'd incorporate MMOs

Today's blog prompt from www.teachthought.com asks us to write about a piece of technology we'd like to incorporate in our school this year.
Gamers need to use English to communicate, particularly those playing MMOs (massively mulitplayer online games).  As an EFL teacher, I would love to encourage my students to play these more so they can see how English really is necessary: not just in some distant far off future in some distant far off land in the real world, but in some distant future in a distant land right now on your computer!

Goals for this year

Katie Salen of the Institute of Play talks about the principles of game-like learning, the 7th of which is "it kind of feels like play".   My teaching goal for is year is to make everything feel like play.  It already does for me...but how to make it so for my students.  Ay, there's the rub!