The document discusses designing an escape room for English language learners and provides guidance on key elements to include. It recommends determining the learning objectives, crafting an engaging story and setting, designing puzzles that maximize language practice time, including disguised tests or exercises, and playtesting to ensure it is fun but also promotes learning. It also provides examples of other online escape room games and information on joining a community of educators designing similar activities.
9. DESIGNING YOUR OWN
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1) Learning objectives / language to be learned or practised
2) Story / setting
3) Puzzle design - maximise time learning/practising language
4) Check: disguised test / gamified exercises? (i.e. is it fun?)
5) Check: not just fun (i.e. will students be learning?)
6) Play Test: (difficult? Follow the path through the ER?)
Approach to ELT LERG game design
10. OTHER ONLINE ESCAPE ROOM GAMES
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In this workshop, we will play part of an online escape room game and then I will discuss how best to go about designing your own similar type of game for language teaching and learning.
First of all, what is an escape room? Have any of you ever done one? Have any of you ever done one with students?
The Red Triangle: an ELT LLER (Live Listening Escape Room) by Graham Stanley (2020)
For more info contact: graham.Stanley@gmail.com Twitter @grahamstanley
Teacher/Game Master’s Instructions
This Powerpoint can be used in the ELT classroom with Intermediate level+ students.
It can also be used as a live online activity with language learners.
It is a live listening / speaking activity. You can adapt the language to the level of the students.
This escape room has been designed to show what can be done, to provoke curiosity and get students speaking / listening without focus on any particular area of language. You might want to design a similar escape room that targets a particular language point, etc.
The game should take 30-40 minutes for the students to complete.
You can ask the students to write a story/report based on their experience when they have finished and escaped the room.
If you have a large class, split the students into groups of 5 and let each group take turns telling you what to do.
To begin, display the PPT and read the initial description on each page, asking the students to respond.
Some of the pages require the students to search areas of a space or carry out actions, as they would do if they were looking for clues in a physical Escape Room Game, only they can only do so by using language to tell you where to look. If you have a large class, then I suggest splitting them into groups and ask each group to take turns to search an area of the room until they find the way out.
Other pages have puzzles the students need to solve. You can ask them to do this in groups. When a group thinks they have the solution,ask them to tell you, and then you can respond and let them know if it is right. If they do not get it right, then the other groups continue until the correct solution is found.
You could do the whole activity all at once, or use it as a warmer / finisher with students, doing one room / puzzle each class at the beginning or the end.
Unless otherwise noted, all images used under licence, from https://scop.io/ apart from Red Triangle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KemRxx-DrQg&t=2927s
BACKGROUND
TEACHER INSTRUCTIONS (Read the background to the game below to the learners)
BACKGROUND: The year is 2042. The world has finally found a cure for the corona virus, and the ultimate in entertainment, recruitment shortlisting and team building involves transporting yourself via a sophisticated virtual reality system to otherworldly spaces which are convincingly real.
Today, you and your friends have chosen to have fun by visiting a new virtual escape room game called the Red Triangle. The objective is simple. You will enter a series of spaces where you will have to solve a number of puzzles and find a portal in the shape of a red triangle in order to escape. Any questions so far?
OK, I am now going to actívate the entry portal. Once it is activated, you all need to walk through it to begin the game.
[Stop sharing PPT and In Zoom with virtual background feature turned off, show green screen or blank wall then switch on virtual background showing blue circles.]
[Once they have stepped through the portal, share screen again.]
ROOM 1. 5 ELEMENTS
DESCRIPTION (Read aloud to the students) You are in the middle of a large white hexagonal room. In the centre of the room painted on the floor is a star made up of five triangles and a hegagon (as the imagen the slide). At the point of each star is another design painted on the floor and an object sitting on top. There are four triangles and one circle. Each wall has a door and there is a different coloured triangle symbol on each of the doors. What do you want to do?
TEACHER’S NOTES:
Each of the symbols / coloured triangles represent an element (spirit: water: fire: earth: air) The object sitting on each symbol is different. On the circle is an empty glass. On the upside down triangle, there is a small glass jug.By the red triangle is a small pot with a lid. Next to the green triangle is a small plantpot. Next to the yellow triangle is a small triangular bottle with a cork stopper. Taking the cork off, you hear a sucking sound – the bottle seems to be magically sucking air into it.
You cannot open the doors, but it seems that one person (only) can walk through the door into the room behind. Each of the doors leads to a small triangular shaped room. Once in the room, the person can return through the same door without a problem.
WHITE: You walk through the door and find yourself in a small white triangular room. Piano jazz is playing in the background and in front of you is a small bar. A smartly dressed bartender is polishing a glass. “Hello Sir / Madame. What can I get you?”
The bar serves only spirits (whisky, gin, tequila, etc) and the player can order any of them and take them back to the hexagon room or drink them, etc, but only if the player brings their own glass. The player should place the glass of spirits on the circle symbol.
BLUE: You walk into the blue triangular room room and see a triangular blue fountain with clear running water. The jug should be filled with wáter and placed on the symbol next to the blue triangle.
RED: In this red triangular room there is a fire at the end of the triangle. In front of the fire is a pair of tongs. The player needs to use the tongs to lift out a burning ember from the fire and place it in the pot, taking the pot to the other room and putting it on the symbol.
GREEN: When you walk into this room, you hear the sound of birds and feel earth under your feet. The room is coloured green.. The player needs to scoop earth into the plantpot and place the plantpot on the symbol.
YELLOW: You enter the yellow triangular room and feel the wind blowing at you. So much so, you find it difficult to move forward into the room. Opening the triangular boottle Will suck the ind into it an make it calm. The triangular bottle should be placed on the yellow symbol.
SOLVING THE PUZZLE
Once all of the symbols have their offerings, the hexagon in the middle of the room starts to glow red. Each of the players need to move to the hexagon. It starts pulsating more quickly and then the players are stransported to the next room.
ROOM 2. UPSIDE DOWN ROOM (1/2)
DESCRIPTION (Read aloud to the students) UPSIDE DOWN / REVERSED GRAVITY ROOM
[using virtual background feature, show classroom on green screen, rotated 180 degrees or show the presentation here]
You walk into the next room and immediately find yourself standing on the ceiling. It appears you are upside down or in a room with reverse gravity. There is no furniture in the room, only what appears to be a plain wooden floor above your heads. The room is in darkness. There are no windows. In the middle of the room is a chandelier with five light bulbs. In front of you is an open door to a what seems to be a classroom, but which you cannot reach. What do you do?
TEACHER’S NOTES:
Possible actions:
You stand on each other’s shoulders so you can reach the door and climb into the other room. Once you are all in the classroom, two of you lift up the last person into the room.
You investigate the chandelier [show PPT of chandelier]. It is a Graham chandelier, black with six electric light bulbs in the shape of candles. It is turned off. Looking at the wall, you see a lightswitch, but it’s too high for any of you to reach.
Standing on each other’s shoulders, you reach the lightswitch and turn the lights of the chandelier on. The light is very strong, so strong in fact that it dazzles your eyes and you all need to close them as you think the light could blind you if you don’t.
You turn the light off. After a minute or so, you can all see again.
You leave the light on. Nothing happens. Even though you have all closed your eyes, you feel pain from the brightness of the light [Everyone is temporarily blinded for 5 minutes and has a migraine.]
ROOM 2. UPSIDE DOWN ROOM (2/2)
GRAHAM CHANDELIER
DESCRIPTION (Read aloud to the students) UPSIDE DOWN / REVERSED GRAVITY ROOM
[using virtual background feature, show classroom on green screen, rotated 180 degrees]
You walk into the next room and immediately find yourself standing on the ceiling. It appears you are upside down or in a room with reverse gravity. There is no furniture in the room, only what appears to be a plain wooden floor above your heads. The room is in darkness. There are no windows. In the middle of the room is a chandelier with five light bulbs. In front of you is an open door to a what seems to be a classroom, but which you cannot reach. What do you do?
TEACHER’S NOTES:
Possible actions:
You stand on each other’s shoulders so you can reach the door and climb into the other room. Once you are all in the classroom, two of you lift up the last person into the room.
You investigate the chandelier [show PPT of chandelier]. It is a Graham chandelier, black with six electric light bulbs in the shape of candles. It is turned off. Looking at the wall, you see a lightswitch, but it’s too high for any of you to reach.
Standing on each other’s shoulders, you reach the lightswitch and turn the lights of the chandelier on. The light is very strong, so strong in fact that it dazzles your eyes and you all need to close them as you think the light could blind you if you don’t.
You turn the light off. After a minute or so, you can all see again.
You leave the light on. Nothing happens. Even though you have all closed your eyes, you feel pain from the brightness of the light [Everyone is temporarily blinded for 5 minutes and has a migraine.]
CLASSROOM
[Share screen again]
DESCRIPTION (Read aloud to the students)
You now find yourself in a typical classroom, but there seems to be no entry or exit. The door you walked through seems to have disappeared. The picture shows you what you can see in the classroom. Behind you is a blackboard containing some instructions written by the teacher.
TEACHER’S NOTES:
Possible actions:
Exploring any of the items listed in the picture leads nowhere. The only book seems to be multiple copies of Headway Upper Intermediate
If they look behind them, they see the teacher has written “Turn to page 42”on the blackboard.
If they turn to page 42 in Headway Intermediate they disappear…when the last one has disappeared, turn to the next slide.
The Red Triangle
RED TRIANGLE IN FOREST
You are now outside in a forest. In a clearing near the door, there is a large pulsating red light with the shape of a triangle. What do you do?
If you walk through the triangle, you escape the game…
THE END
This is intended as an example oral Escape Room for you to build upon. Why not add more images and puzles?
It is also mystery escape room with a minimal storyline – is it necessary to have more of a story? What benefits would there be in expanding the storyline?
As it stands, follow up activities for students might include writing their own narratives about what happened and how they escaped the place – they can add what happened before and after, adding their own sory ideas. Alternatively, they could role-play telling the pólice about it and describing the mystery man, who they think must have been involved.
Advantages of live listening Escape Rooms:
You can do this with an online class as well as f2f
You can more easily add elements that a re magical or fantastical in nature using photographs or just via what you say
DESIGNING YOUR OWN
Advantages of live listening Escape Rooms:
You can do this with an online class as well as f2f
You can more easily add elements that a re magical or fantastical in nature using photographs or just via what you say.
DESIGNING YOUR OWN
There are other ways of ddoing digital escape room games – here’s one that Michelle Worgan, co-moderator on the TESOL EVO 2020 Escape the Classroom! Session has done that Works well as a self-Access activity. It uses a tool called Thinglink and is based on hotspots added to a 360 degree photo.
WANT MORE?
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