A-Z PC Games - Strategy Games

Using Games to Make Language Learning Interesting, Innovative, and Fun

2007-11-27T19:01:00.005-08:00

Games are Useful in Language Learning

We can successfully use games in the language learning classroom to teach and practice numerous skills including:

• Vocabulary

• Spelling

• Grammar and structure

• Idioms and expressions

• Pronunciation

• Listening and speaking

Factors Affecting Choice of Games

What kinds of games we can use will depend on their intended purpose. Whether it's to introduce a topic, practice a particular skill or aspect, or reinforce previous learning topics games help by providing much-valued practice while effectively lowering the affective filter of the students (Krashen and Terrell, 1993). Other factors which can impact our choice of games are:

• The number of students

• The size of the classroom

• Classroom environmental aspects

• Length of time

• Materials, realia or aids available

Kinds of Games

We can vary the kinds of games considerably to help our students to make learning interesting, innovative and more fun. Useful and commonly-practiced games available for almost all teaching and learning venues consist of:

• Board games

• TPR and physical movement games

• Inter-active games

• Strategy games

• Online and computer games

Create Good Language Learners

By using a wide variety of language learning games in the EFL or ESL classroom the teacher is able to promote a number of qualities which positively contribute to a lowered affective filter and improved language acquisition. You should include games among your strategies to promote these qualities that make for a good language learner (Rubin, 1975)

• Willing and accurate guessing

• Language related Risk-taking

• Uninhibited communication

• Spontaneous language practice

• Self-monitoring of speech

• Attention to language meaning

Where and How

Where you can get an ongoing variety of pre-produced games, how to use them creatively in the EFL or ESL classroom and techniques for creating your own games customized to meet the needs of your students will be discussed in future postings.

Prof. Larry M. Lynch is a bi-lingual copywriter, expert author and photographer specializing in business, travel, food and education-related writing in South America. His work has appeared in Transitions Abroad, South American Explorer, Escape From America, Mexico News and Brazil magazines. He lives in Colombia and teaches at a university in Cali. Want lots more free tips, help and information on learning English or another foreign language? Go now to: http://bettereflteacher.blogspot.com/

11 Alternative Garden Games

2007-11-27T19:01:00.004-08:00

Tired of the same ol', same ol' when it come to entertaining your garden party guests? Weary of boring badminton and jarts? Croquet not your style? Then you're in the right spot! Here are games sure to make your next party the hit of the gardening social season!

Icebreakers

Game #1: The Gnat Slap Equipment required: A garden of any size. As your guests arrive, invite them for the obligatory 'stroll through the garden'. Tell them they are welcome to slap the gnats but only those gnats annoying another guest; never are they permitted to slap gnats hovering around their own eyes, nose, ears or mouth. The winner is the last guest standing. A great icebreaker! Game #2: The 3-Legged Butterfly Chase Equipment required: Rope or wire to bind legs. This is lots of fun. Tightly bind two guests' legs together to make a three-legged contestant. Then tell them you'll unbind them only after they've captured a butterfly. Tip: For a longer lasting game, declare the quarry to be a hummingbird. Game #3: Competitive Weed Pulling Equipment required: Weeds of any kind. This is a great game to reward the hard working guest. Entrants don't eat until the entire garden is cleaned of weeds. Winner: The person with the most weeds eats first and most, and so on down the line. This game teaches the rewards of the Puritan work ethic. Game #4: The Wasp Dodge Equipment required: More wire for binding, an in-ground wasp nest or two (Yellow Jackets are the best!), a small amount of kerosene. With hands tightly wired behind their backs, have your players stand in a circle around a wasp nest entrance. Irritate the wasps by sprinkling a little kerosene over the hole and oh, boy! Stand back! Entrants are judged on style, grace, self-defensive acrobatic movements and number of stings.

Games to Play While the Frozen Turkey Cooks on the Charcoal Grill

Game #5: Watch the Lawn Go Dormant Equipment required: A dry turf. This is for those guests that had a poor showing in the other games. The winner is the person still awake when the lawn is actually declared dormant. Game #6: Bobbing for Aquatic Insects Equipment required: A stagnant water source such as a neglected pool, pond or bucket. Kids love this one! The winner is whoever come up with the largest water strider. Incentive for the competitively spirited: Anyone bobbing to the bottom retrieving the hapless mouse that slipped in about a month ago qualifies for the National Bobb-Off! Game #7: Slug Races Equipment required: A slug for each guest. We suggest two events: The 4" sprint and the 2-foot marathon. Guests may mark their slugs in any way they wish. Tip 1: Use an air-horn to signify the start of the races. Slugs are hard of hearing. Tip 2: Entrants in the "Watch the Lawn Go Dormant" game can play this game simultaneously. Game #8: Hornet's Nest Pinata Equipment required: 1 large hornet's nest, a stick long enough to reach the nest, a blindfold. This game really livens things up after the slower pace of the slug races and helps work off dinner. Game #9: Blindfolded Lawn Mowing Equipment required: A power mower and the blindfold from the Hornet's Nest Pinata game if it isn't too bloody. Everyone loves this sport! One by one guests are blindfolded and told to mow the grass. The winner is the contestant who runs over the fewest trees, shrubs, flowers, pets and other guests. Lotsa laughs! Time Saving tip: Dial 911 before the game begins. Games for After Dark
Tip! The Wizardry series, however, was one of the greatest experiences PC game players had in the relatively short history of PC games.

Game #10: Firefly Shooting Equipment required: A BB gun for everyone. After a fun day of activities and food, gather everyone in the center of the garden in a large circle to try their hand at nailing a few fireflies. The winner, and don't expect one, is anyone who actually knocks a lightening bug out of the sky. Time Saving tip: Dial 911 before the game begins. Game #11: Feed the Mosquitos Equipment required: Go figure. Play this last game while lingering over "good-byes" in the garden.

When Tom Schneider isn't trying to find new guests to invite to his garden parties, he and his wife Deb are busy with their on-line machine embroidery design business, WindstarEmbroidery.com

Fun and Games Job?

2007-11-27T19:01:00.003-08:00

Library Director? People often say to me when learning that I am a librarian that it must be fun working in a library and just reading books all the time. How little they know.

As a library director some of my duties include: buying books and supplies, keeping records of all library transactions, checking books in and out, shelving books, attending meetings and conferences and week-long seminars, calling on overdue books and sending reminders, doing bookwork totals daily, monthly and yearly for statistics and reports, publicity, organizing and overseeing various library programs, which include Summer Reading, preschool story time, book discussion groups, family night, teen night, coordinating volunteers, weeding out and discarding old and out of date books, shoveling snow, and spreading snow-melt in winter, sweeping sidewalks and watering shrubs in summer, borrowing books from other libraries for interlibrary loans, picking up mail daily at the post office, trying to keep people quiet so others can enjoy the library and helping patrons find books. We also help people on the computers, clean the bathrooms, wash windows, set up tables and chairs, vacuum the carpets, empty the wastebaskets, put trash out for garbage day, dust, clean and sweep entry.

As we say at our meetings: "We wear many hats and small town librarians' jobs are a labor of love." You can prove that just by looking at our salaries.

Marge has been writing all her life and has published two humor books. She is a library director in a small town in Southern Idaho and has just turned 62. She writes a local column called, "Granny's Journal."

Chinese Folk Customs, Games, and Performing Arts

2007-11-27T19:01:00.002-08:00

Chinese people love excitement, and Chinese New Year and other traditional festivals are times of special celebration and joy. Singing and dancing are everywhere. In spite of the heavy influence of Western culture in the increasingly cosmopolitan Taiwan, the various customs and activities accompanying traditional fests and celebrations are still observed with enthusiasm. Many of these folk customs and performances are incorporated into the festival celebrations and competitions held on Chinese New Year and other festivals, and have been passed down from generation to generation. The most common of these are perhaps the dragon dance and lion dance. Children growing up in Taiwan, even ones who have not yet taken their first steps, have all seen one of these performances from their fathers' shoulders or on TV at home.

There are innumerable other kinds of festive folk performances, such as "riding in a boat on land," walking on stilts, "carrying a youth piggyback," the clam spirit dance, and so forth.

In "carrying a youth piggyback," a young woman straps a head-to-waist wooden mannequin of an old person to the front of her body, giving the appearance that an old person is carrying her piggyback. This portrayal of two persons by one is performed as a burlesque pantomime.

In the clam spirit dance, a young woman puts on a clam shell woven out of bamboo strips. In one sketch, the clam spirit opens and closes her shell in response to fisherman casting and pulling in his net, but who each time gets nothing in return for his efforts. In another, a snipe tries to peck out the clam's tasty flesh for a meal, but instead gets his beak stuck in the clamshell. This performance inevitably draws side-splitting laughter and roaring applause from the audience.

Popular Chinese folk games that go back thousands of years, such as playing diabolo, kicking a shuttlecock, jumping rope, and spinning tops, challenge and delight youngsters even today.

With encouragement and support from the government, games, stage shows, and customs such as these have been brought into the twentieth century in the Taiwan today. Detailed information on their history, development, materials, technique, performance, and so forth, is widely available in cultural centers, bookstores, and craft shops around the island in the form of home videos and books. Elementary school students often get to try their hand at making some of the equipment used in these various folk arts themselves, under the guidance of an experienced teacher. in this way, these ancient cultural treasures are kept vital and new, and a part of contemporary life, so that they may continue to enrich the lives of China's people for generations to come.

Please visit www.chinatownconnection.com to learn more about Chinese Culture.

Thinking Games

2007-11-27T19:01:00.001-08:00

Classic thinking games are a great way to tune up your brain. You can use these mind games to help you increase your brain power and to get you out of your thinking "ruts." Play them enough, and they'll habituate you to using creative problem solving as a normal part of thinking about things.

Thinking Games For Groups

Group thinking games are especially good for long trips in a car. Have someone look out the window, for example, and randomly choose an object. Everyone in the car then tries to imagine a new way to make money with it. Common street signs become places to advertise, trees are sold with names, and a truck becomes a traveling grocery store.

Use the "change of perspective" technique as a problem-solving game. Just pick any topic, and see who can come up with the most unique new perspective. Could there be a world where jobs weren't necessary? How would a virus define morality if it was conscious?

One creative thinking game uses a technique called "concept combination." You simply combine random concepts or things in interesting ways, and see who has the best idea. A chair and a microwave? Maybe an easy-chair with a built-in cooler, microwave and television, or microwavable "couch potatoes" - a potato snack in the shape of a couch.

More Thinking Games

A lateral thinking puzzle you can try right now involves nine dots, layed out three by three. Connect them all with four straight lines, without lifting the pen or pencil from the paper. When you figure this one out you'll appreciate the expression "thinking outside of the box."

Many lateral-thinking puzzles use a scenario, real or imagined, with a selection of things you have to use to accomplish something. Imagine a ping-pong ball in an iron pipe that's set in cement. The pipe sticks up three-feet high, and has almost the same diameter as the ball. Using only a box of frosted-flakes, and a t-shirt, and your body and mind, how many ways can you find to get the ball out of the pipe? You could also set this up for real, to know if a proposed solution will really work.

Many riddles are just mind games or lateral-thinking puzzles. You move laterally in your mind, away from your usual line of thought, to solve a riddle. For example, what did his friends do when the canibal was late for dinner? They gave him the cold shoulder, of course! Keeping your brain in shape doesn't have to be a matter of serious study. Why not play some thinking games?
Tip! Today time runs fast and for many parents is not possible to continue old traditions, but computers and the internet era have brought a whole universe of exciting family activities. PC games are classified by ages as baby computer games, toddler computer software, preschooler games and activities, etc.

Steve Gillman has been studying brainpower and related topics for years. For more on How To Increase Brain Power, and to get the Brain Power Newsletter and other free gifts, visit: http://www.IncreaseBrainPower.com