Gamification in L2 Classroom

This week's topic is gamification, by a definition provided from a website called Gamification Wiki:"Gamification is the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging". By this definition, we can understand that one important reason to introduce game into learning and education is game is able to create fun and engaging atmosphere in the process of learning. 

To get a better idea, I read 10 Gaming Genres to Adapt in Class, in this article, the writer wrote about which kind of games can be used and how to apply it in real classroom environment. Next, it's time for me to try one of those games! I choose Bathroom Escape because I've already played similar games like this before. The key to this sort of game is try to find out every details, collect all useful items and try to apply those in the right place.  For this game, I was lucky enough to get through in one time. During the process of playing, I considered that if I use this game for my language teaching classes, my teaching objectives might focus on vocabularies and grammar (directional propositions), I will have my students try to play this game and remember the words and items names that appeared, also I will ask them to describe the place between two or three objects. For example: in this picture, I will ask the position between the picture on the wall and the vase on the floor. The expected answer should be: the painting is above the vase or the vase is under the painting.  

In a large classroom, if I decided to adopt this game, I might divide the whole class into several different groups, each group can finish this game independently, try to make them compete with each other. Me, as a teacher, I will play the role of monitor and observer, if they come across any difficulties during the game, I can give them explicit/implicit hints. I will not use a walk through during activity, but if they fell this game is really too difficult or get stuck with last few steps, I will demonstrate a walk through in front of the whole class. Also, for the review of vocabulary and grammar, I will use the screen shot from scenes of the game to help them reinforce knowledge. Last, to assess whether students have acquired the things I want them to learn, I will have a quiz in the following class to check their understanding.