Game review: SPENT - Can you make it through the month?

In my previous post, I talked about games in the ELT classroom and how to choose appropriate games. In this post, I'm going to talk about one of the games that Graham Stanley mentioned in his webinar: SPENT. According to Wikipedia:

SPENT is an online game about surviving poverty and homelessness created by ad agency McKinney for pro bono client Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD), whose mission "is to provide food, clothing, shelter and supportive services to neighbors in need". Players must make the difficult decisions necessary to live for one month on $1,000, often having to choose between equally disagreeable options. The dilemmas they face represent those that bring people to places like UMD: Do you make a healthy meal or keep the lights on? Cover the minimum on your credit cards or pay the rent? Hope your sick daughter gets better on her own or risk your job by leaving early to take her to the doctor? Let your son play in the after-school sports league or save the money needed for his uniform?
The game ends when players either run out of money before the end of the month or make it through with money left over.

Obviously, this game is great to encourage critical thinking in our students. Most of them will come to realize that they would never survive in that kind of situation by making the same decisions they would with their current lifestyle. Moreover, from the point of view of language, the game features lots of vocabulary connected with work and unemployment, such as make it through the month, run out of (money), get a job, monthly take-home pay, taxes, opt in/out for health insurance, get a loan, to name but a few.

However, as Graham points out, the teacher needs to pay attention to the way students play the game, since while playing videogames, once you get really into it, you could either get into character, or take the idea of winning too seriously. If students end up doing the latter, they will get carried away by the need to win and end up trivializing these issues.

I played this game twice and each playthrough was completely different. At first, my morals guided my decisions and I attended all of my fictional children's school plays, gave them money for random stuff... Until I finally ended up broke because I had decided to pay for my sick dog's four hundred dollar treatment. When I played the game for the second time, fortunately, I didn't have to make that last decision, but I had to buy tons of junk food in order to save money, keep my mouth shut instead of complaining about my low salary because I could risk getting sacked, and of course, I was never able to pay for those 'extras' my children asked for (such as money to buy a uniform in order to join an after-school sports team). Oh, and I missed the school play because it meant getting out of work and losing those wages.

A lesson plan for this game, as Graham suggests, could include a warm-up discussion to speculate about what will happen in the game: whether students think they would survive the month on one thousand dollars, what problems could be the most difficult to solve and why, etc. Afterwards, while playing, students could be asked to spot certain expressions.

To sum up, here's the game according to Kyle's selection criteria:

• Simplicity. The game is simple enough, as the basic pattern of interaction consists of different dilemmas presented to the player, and the player has to decide what to do by choosing from two or three options. After that, the player learns the consequences of his/her actions, also getting a piece of relevant information regarding poverty and unemployment in the USA:

If the player opts in for health insurance:

If the player opts out for health insurance:

• Language. You cannot progress in the game without understanding the dilemmas you are presented with, as your decisions will have consequences. If students were to make random choices, they would probably lose the game relatively fast, so language is an important element in the game.
• Pauses. There are pauses each time the player has to make a decision. As I said before quoting Kyle Mawer, these should be used for the teacher to encourage language production and for the students to produce it.
• Story. If students perceive the game as being the story of what happens to your character (or their 'other selves' who are unemployed and poor), I believe they will be able to find the story gripping.
• Age. There is no inappropriate content, but I believe some issues will not be easily understood by students younger than 10.
• Audio. This aspect is not really the best, as audio is limited to some sound effects.
• Walkthrough. No walkthrough is really needed for this game, as all you have to do is choose from two or three options and you don't have to figure anything out in order to progress.
• Language. Language in this game is crucial to progress, and it is written. As I mentioned above, the game contains several expressions connected to the world of work and unemployment, and tons of modals used in dilemmas (should), decision-making (will), etc.
• Fun. I believe calling it 'fun' would mean not taking these issues seriously, but it is definitely interesting and entertaining.

Digital play: gamify your lessons, by Graham Stanley

I have explored Graham Stanley's blog and watched a recording of his webinar Gamify your classroom. In both, Graham mentions different ways of adapting games for classroom use and he recommends several games, for which he provides lesson plans. Being a gamer myself, I found his blog and webinar very interesting.

In his webinar, Graham mentioned one occasion on which he tried to play RPGs (Role-playing Games) with students that hadn't played the genre before, and as a consequence, the activity wasn't very successful. Before trying to use games with a certain group of students, teachers should find out whether this particular group of students is used to playing games for fun. If they are, the teacher will be able to exploit the real learning potential behind playing since, as Graham says, if something is already a part of your life outside the classroom, then that will most likely motivate you if used inside the classroom.

However, in order for a game to be of help in language learning, there must be a context in the game chosen, provided by a task, and learners need to understand that they are playing the game for a pedagogical reason. This means that the teacher must be careful when designing the task; the task will be the key for meaningful language practice when playing.

Moreover, teachers should do some 'research' before trying to 'gamify' their lessons, or they may find themselves in a completely unknown world and they won't be able to take advantage of what games make students feel in order to accomplish successful language acquisition.

Tips to finding a good game

In this post, Kyle Mawer (Graham Stanley's colleague) provides tips to choose a good game to use in your lessons. Here's a summarized version:

The ideal game...

1. ... has to be seemingly simple. If the game is too complex or demands too much attention on the part of the learner, then there won't be enough time for language practice/learning.
2. ... should come packed with language. The best games are the ones that already come packed with language, such as Vortex Point, where you cannot make progress if you don't read the speech bubbles.
3. ... should have in-game pauses. These should be used for the teacher to encourage language production and for the students to produce it.
4. ... should have a gripping enough story.
5. ... should be age appropriate.
6. ... should have nice audio elements. These can enrich the students' gaming and learning experience.
7. ... should have a well-worded walkthrough. This can be difficult to find, as they are usually written by players, but fortunately for us, Kyle Mawer has set up a wiki with several walkthroughs written with an eye on language learning.
8. ... should contain some form of language. It could be spoken or written, and it could be in the game itself or in its walkthrough, but it should be present somewhere.
9. ... should be fun! Or else students won't become engaged in the activity. As Kyle says, a language task shouldn't kill the fun of a game, but rather restructure it.

ClassTools.net: free tools and games for your classroom

In this post, I would like to share ClassTools.net, a website where you can find several fun tools to use with your students, such as Twister (a tool to create fake tweets). According to the site, "The 'Twister' template allows you to create fictional 'status updates' that can then be printed off for display purposes."

Take a look at these funny Twister 'accounts' impersonating famous historical figures:

Geoffrey Chaucer:

Thomas Jefferson:

And my favourite - Jane Austen (don't get me wrong; I love Jane Austen, but you must admit this formula sort of summarizes all of her novels):

Here's my own not-so-funny and nerdy attempt:

And two more commenting on one of Ruben Puentedura's talks on the SAMR and TCPK models:

The site has tons of different tools, such as Fakebook (a tool similar to Twister, which allows you to create fake Facebook accounts and post stuff to a fake wall). There is also a great arcade game generator.