Thursday, October 16, 2014

The game of Third World Farmer

    I played the game Third World Farmer for about six or seven times. This game is to help players to experience the plight of poor farmers in impoverished countries and how to make life. In the beginning, I failed several times because I made all the family leave the farm to make money and they all died. All the other reasons I failed came to my inappropriate use of the money to plant crops. It is not an easy game because it requires players to have a sense of economy and figure out the best way to make money and run the family’s life.
  

    As a potential ESL teacher, I would use this game for the intermediate level students to learn both language and the culture when they play the game. The vocabulary would be my first learning objective because all the words in the game are in categories and students can learn different words and there is explanation under each word. For example, “a plow greatly increases crop yield” is the explanation for “plow”. This can also function as the hint for the game. The second objective would be the cultivation of cross-culture knowledge and understanding. Many students from the city don’t even know the tools for farm and they cannot imagine how hard life is in the third world. According to theNY standardESL5, students will demonstrate cross-cultural knowledge and sensitivity in communicating with others of varied social, cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
   



    For the assessment, I would have my students to list all the new words they have learned from the game. Since in buying, planting and selling activities during the game, students are familiar with the vocabulary, this listing task according to Kyle Mawer's task types can assess how much my students remember the meaning and use of the vocabulary. That game can also be a culture course because students are immersed in the different culture and simulate authentic life in that culture. For the cultural knowledge objective, I would ask my students to write a journal about their personal feelings or thought about the game and especially about the third world culture. I can assess their cultural awareness by their journals. 
  

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for your review of this game. Another assessment tool you could use would be to match pictures and words.

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