Video Games Unplugged

I'm currently reading Kyle Mawer and Graham Stanley's Digital Play, published by DELTA, for a book review (which I'll share with you as soon as it's online). So far it's a great book, passionately and convincingly arguing for a place for video games in the ELT classroom. 

The second part of the book, and the biggest, contains a myriad of activities, including ones that are about video games rather than using video games. I was particularly struck by an activity on page 39 called Game Chatalogue. The essence of the activity is that students use video game catalogues to discuss what they find interesting.

If you want more detail, you'll have to buy the book... ;-)

But I will tell you this, as I read the activity I thought this could have come straight out of another book from the DELTA teacher development series, one that some people still maintain would be dead set against technology in the classroom. And I thought that was it was very interesting to see a dogme activity there in a resource book so obviously appealing to techheads. And then I realised it wasn't the only the one, but a lot of the activities were essentially video games unplugged.

And I guess there are two main ways of interpreting this. On one hand you can say that this is an example of how Dogme ELT has had such a strong influence on classroom practices in the last decade that it is now used without even its label. Or your position may be that Dogme ELT is just a label for common sense teaching which existed long before Scott Thornbury's 10 Commandments and this is just another example.

Anyone who has read this blog before will know that I'm much more inclined towards the former than the latter, but what's really important to me is that this is a practical, clear example, free from argument and labelling which enables teachers to get on with teaching. And that's what I'd like to see more of, not just on blogs, but in resource books and yes, even coursebooks. I can dream, can't I?

Update

My review of Digital Play is now online: 
http://edition.tefl.net/reviews/esl-teaching/review-digital-play/

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Book review: My Grammar and I

I've done another book review for tefl.net, which you can now find online. This time, I've faced up to my demons and read a grammar book. Find out how I did by following the link below:

http://edition.tefl.net/reviews/esl-grammar/my-grammar-and-i/#more-5065

There's no comments function on that page, so any feedback would be gratefully received here. Thanks.

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Guest post and review

There's no update this week I'm afraid, but that doesn't mean I've been slacking off. Head on over to tefl.net, and you can read my review of Lindsay Clandfield and Macmillan's Global pre-intermediate coursebook.

While you're there you can also check out my guest piece on Alex Case's TEFLtastic blog. I have written about the 10 things you'll learn by doing a CELTA. I feel very pleased and privileged to have written on Alex's blog, as it one of my favourite TEFL blogs, and certainly one of the wittiest and most original.

As always your feedback and comments would be welcome.

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