Gamification in the ESL Classroom

"Gamification is the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts. Typical game elements include the use of leaderboards, avatars, points, levels, rewards and badges" (Pesce). 

This teaching strategy is one of the best methods to engage students in their own learning process and create a classroom community.  One of the main reasons that I used to love using gamification in my classroom is that the competition usually overtakes the student's want to idly stand by and not participate in what activity we are doing that day.  Gaming has become integrated into many of our student's lives.  It is something that most of our students use as a leisure activity. When we incorporate aspects like this into our classroom we can reach our students in ways that we were unable to before. Gamification forms a strong bond between students in our classroom by building community but also builds the link between the our students and the content that we are trying to teach them.

Some gamified platforms that I loved to use in my classroom were Blooket, Kahoot, Gimkit, Nearpod, and Desmos.  Desmos was the only platform out of that list that was specifically geared towards the mathematics classroom. I loved using this with my Algebra 1 students because this website was great at making real life connections with mathematics concepts. Often my students did not realize that we that we were playing "mathy" games because they were so engrossed in the activity. Many students love learning in this way, because it allows them to interact with the concepts that you are trying to teach in a non-traditional way. 

Sources:

Maloney, S. (n.d.). Gamification in English language teaching: More than child's play. Hong Kong TESOL. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from https://hongkongtesol.com/blog/gamification-english-language-teaching-more-childs-play 

Pesce, C. (2014, August 25). ESL teachers ask: How can I gamify my ESL classroom? Busy Teacher. Retrieved December 2, 2022, from https://busyteacher.org/20574-gamify-esl-classroom.html 

The Best Online Learning Games – 2020 (part one). Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day... (2020, June 15). Retrieved November 27, 2022, from https://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2020/06/14/the-best-online-learning-games-2020-part-one/