I edited a text with 15 simulations.  Each simulation begins with reading and listening sections and ends with writing prompts.  And, of course, since they are simulations, each has speaking/listening tasks (what I consider the heart of the simulation).  We use this text in ENGL 0003, a four-skills remedial class here at Oklahoma State University.

Publisher, Kendall Hunt.  I have seen used copies at Amazon too.

I edited a text with 15 simulations.  Each simulation begins with reading and listening sections and ends with writing prompts.  And, of course, since they are simulations, each has speaking/listening tasks (what I consider the heart of the simulation).  We use this text in ENGL 0003, a four-skills remedial class here at Oklahoma State University.

Publisher, Kendall Hunt.  I have seen used copies at Amazon too.

Dear Gene:

thanks for your answer. Would it be posible to have a look to your text with 15 simulations?

Thanks a lot

Amparo

Thanks Amparo for asking this question and thanks Gene for your reply. I may also like to have a look at the simulations you use. 

I would recommend dealing with the skills as suggested by the coursebooks you're using, simply because the exam is systematic and learners must also develop skills to go about the exercises they'll encounter in the real exam.

however, You may introduce one or two simulations after some content units. 

Best,

Laura

Really, it is an interesting question and quite important. It is not easy to create this sort of course, perhaps, when you know the level up to which you have to train your students, it will be clear how to organise your study course.

Best regards. Olga

Thanks Olga,

As I said in my previous message, the level of the students is English B2 (MCER)

I would like to clarify that when I say to plan a course based on simulation and gaming, I mean a full program course. I am not only interest in using simulations or games from time to time, or at the end of each unit. My idea is a full program based on the methodoly of simulation and gaming, where grammar + other skills are taught.

This is the reason why it should be very interesting seeing the text with 15 simulations edited by Gene B. Halleck , if possible.

Thanks to all of you

Amparo

If I understand correctly, the main learning focus is on the language, and simulation is the tool you will use, you are not currently teaching a course on game creation at the computer programming level and having to bring students up to the required English level for the course.

I remember a game from about 15 years ago. It was a program to teach German to Spanish natives. Please find a reference attached. The interesting part (for the time in which it was developed) was that it was a virtual city, with realistic graphics, in which you had to ask for directions, buy things, find your way around, etc. It was not just the more abstract crosswords, fill in the blanks, etc, which are fun and useful, but are further removed from what you would experience. Grammar concepts were not the highlight, but they were still part of the game. Vocabulary is easier to intertwine into most games.

I am currently developing a game to teach Old English to specialized university students. In order to include all of the grammar that the course requires, I have included translation as part of the game. It is gamified by creating a narrative: you are in charge of your town's resources (the game is set in England, starting around the 12th century). Your town spends money and earns money, and one of your sources of income is the production and selling of books in your local monastery. The students translate the texts from Old English into Present Day English and vice versa, which forces them to be properly acquainted with the Old English case system. The more books that are correctly translated and sold, the more money that you have to improve your town.

As a gamer myself, and someone that has had to learn languages at different points in her life and for different reasons, I have found these to be key points:

I hope this is useful.

Best regards,

Fiorella Dotti

http://www.worldcat.org/title/que-facil-es-decirlo-en-aleman/oclc/433561674

Nice, Fiorella! Very interesting approach, particularly the part about creating context through the suspension of disbelief that you mention in number 6 as opposed to forcing into artificial contexts. Beware of anachronisms, though. If the levels of analphabetism in twelfth century England were similar to anywhere else in Europe by that time (except for the monasteries themselves), maybe the book selling business would not be the best choice for your gamers :-)

Regarding Amparo’s original question, I don’t see the benefits of confining oneself to one single approach for a whole course, no matter how attractive that approach is (and this one is very attractive, indeed), but as an experiment it looks very interesting!

Hi Agustin,

Thank you. 

The monasteries in the game sell books to nobles, the nobles use them for prestige points (the game has a complex point dynamic going on, since it's played by the whole class, against each other or collaborating, as they please).

Analphabetism is also a variable in game dynamics ;)

Best,

Fiorella

I never mentioned the NAME of my edited volume published by Kendall Hunt: English Composition Simulations.

In our AEP 4-skills course we use the simulations in the book as the basis for the curriculum.  Each simulation has reading exercises, listening activities, roles for speaking practice/collaborative problem solving, and writing prompts.  So the whole course can be designed around the simulations since they provide practice in all 4 skills.

Topics include University Life (College Admissions & scholarships,Club activities); Issues in the Workplace (Professional dress, Hotel management, Parent/Teacher conferences), and Issues in the Community (Arizona Immigration Law, Lottery, Photoshop, Reparations for race riot from decades ago, Yoga in schools).

Dear Gene,

Thanks for answering to my question. Do you know if is possible to by the book in any online shop? How long is the course you use the book for? Is the book used with b2 students

The Academic English course is 16 weeks (class meets twice a week).  Our students have been admitted to the university (we don't use b2 type classification in the US).  But they are doing university level work.

I know used copies of the book are available at Amazon.com for about $36;  digital copies are available from Kendall Hunt ($40).

I would guess that some of the students are only b1 but I think many would be at the b2 level.

Thanks Gene for the information.

We let you know any progress

Regards

Amparo

Dear professor Amparo:

Thank you so much for asking this important question, how can I plan a B2 English course using only simulation and gaming? I can still remember when you gave all these master classes to us!

That is an interesting point. Simulation and Gaming can belong to the Methodology in any course syllabus as long as it meets some criteria. Hence, perhaps I could answer it like this:

Firstly, as far as for good effective Curriculum Development and Assessment are concerned, I believe that we should take into account the following criteria:

Assessment criteria in Second Language Learning and Teaching, for example, primarily focus on the objectives and competences that the teacher of a class-group should promote in their students. Therefore, what methods will the teacher use for their students to develop these objectives and acquire these competences? To this end, he or she will use logically certain contents of learning through the respective elaboration of teaching units as a lesson plan. In this way, if the desired results in learning are not accomplished by these contents, then the teacher will have to determine why this learning has not been achieved, thus restructuring the whole process (feedback). In other words, assessment criteria in learning respond to “how” the teacher should have taught so that learners would have been able to learn “what.”

Secondly, for us as teachers, it is very important to take into consideration that what students learn and to what degree they learn it is not only affected by how and what they learn, but also depends on what teachers teach and how they teach. That is, instruction will be affected by the educational practice and by teachers themselves. Moreover, what is affecting the outcome and learning process in terms of teaching? Reasonably, firstly, if contents are really adjusted to the knowledge level, which learners have, criterion of psychological significance, if contents and objectives have been sequenced progressively, criterion of logical significance, thereby taking into account the diversity of methods, of activities, and of strategies for teaching. Secondly, if different kinds of activities are applied, what we are going to propose within the assessment itself of teaching planning. In other words, we will look very carefully at our own programming and our own educational practice. Hence, I believe that we should allow for, when filling papers in a lesson plan, the following elements of curricular design, whose arrangement we could summarize as follows:

• Educational goals: objectives and competences.
• Contents.
• Assessment criteria for feedback.
• A methodology based on Cooperative learning, as well as other types of methodologies, for example Gaming and Simulation.

Thirdly, I believe that Prabhu, in one fo his papers, points out certain aspects of classroom language learning and teaching for teachers to carry out, thus offering new proposals for language teaching inferred from some particular social and psychological characteristics of classroom organization. Prabhu (1992: 226):

[…] The curriculum normally is organized as an incremental sequence of teaching units, the sequence as a whole meant to achieve a large objective, and each unit in it meant to achieve a small subobjective… It is worthwhile noticing here the nature of the connection between curricular progression and the educative process. Education is centrally concerned with the mind: Language education aims to promote one form of mental development in learners, whether we conceive of it as the development of cognitive structures or cognitive skills, the realization of an inherent capacity, or the creation of a new capacity. In designing educational activity, this concept of psychological progress is translated into one of curricular progression, the metaphor of a journey being equally applicable to both. The completion of a lesson as a curricular unit is thus meant to represent the completion of a step in the learner’s psycholinguistic development. If this is taken seriously, a given lesson has to be understood and assessed in relation to its match with the learner’s developmental stage at that point, rather than in relation to preceding and following units [...]

Author: Prabhu, N. S. (1992). The dynamics of the language lesson. Tesol Quarterly, 26 (2), 225-241.

Finally, to sum up, I believe that the outline of our research methodology is very important in any project. For example, in the context of acquiring a second language, such a methodology would consist of applying some basic rationale to our educational practice corresponding to learning principles, methodological orientations, and methodological guidelines. In other words, to carry out all that is planned in our course syllabus, we, as teachers, need to implement a methodology as follows:

• Working on the contents;
• Developing the objectives;
• Acquiring the competences;
• Meeting the assessment criteria.

So, how does the student learn? How to put into practice all that has been planned in our course syllabus? How to work on the contents, develop the objectives, acquire the competences and skills, and achieve the assessment criteria? In what way will we accomplish this? The way to implement everything planned in such a syllabus is the METHODOLOGY. Thus, we, as teachers, will carry out a series of actions on students, which we will propose to guarantee the teaching of the contents. To this end, these methodological guidelines of our subject matter should be adequate to the extent that they fit the different rhythms of learning that students present, that is, typical of the Stage methodological orientations, according to the official syllabus set up by the Educational Administration. Now then, both these methodological guidelines and Stage methodological orientations will be adequate insofar as they start from student's situation and needs with the learning principles in which effective learning is developed. For example, let us suppose a classroom situation in which the teacher puts forward this learning principle, “we must promote functional learning; consequently, we will promote the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), thereby Including linguistic components, skills and communicative and learning strategies in an integrated way.”

Best wishes,

Javier.

Hi, dear Amparo

Thanks for your answer. A full foreign language teaching course through games is really a rare one. 

Let me ask  You: why is the FULL FOREIGN LANGUAGE course in games so necessary to You? How much time have Your students got to study up to B2 level?

Games must be a strong method, and developing the required listening, speaking, writing and reading shall take much time, if You apply only one method.

Long ago, when teachers hadn't the means we have, they should use this method widely, but they created a blackboard, the chalk was created, and so on and so forth.

As for me, I would like to apply game in each lecture, but hour after hour..? Please would You tell me what for?

Perhaps people You work with require that?

Kindest regards, Olga