| Body | In this activity, learners will use their role as a mayor in SimCity BuildIt to analyze their goals and decisions. Then learners will research a real-world leader to read about that leader’s goals, struggles, and decisions, and will make comparisons between their experiences in the game and those of the real-world leaders. The activity will end with small group presentations about their observations of learners. This activity is intended for intermediate learners of any language supported by SimCity BuildIt.
Objectives
Learners will be able to:
- analyze and discuss the role of a leader.
- use the past tense to reflect upon their decisions, goals, and struggles.
- research and read about a real-world leader.
- present findings about the leader and connect it to their experience.
Modes: Interpersonal Communication, Interpretive Reading, Presentational Writing, Presentational Speaking
Resources: Activity worksheet, computers with internet (1 per 2 learners), SimCity BuildIt
Additional teacher resources: Game summary, teacher tipsheet
- Learners will play Simcity BuildIt in the target language (20 min). Direct learners to pay attention to the decisions that they make as mayor. Learners will record their goals on the worksheet as they play.
- Learners should get in small groups and discuss their various goals and what they did to achieve them. Were they successful? Why or why not? Learners should fill out part B of the worksheet here.
- Then, regroup as a class to discuss their role as mayor. The teacher can have these questions projected or printed out so that learners can refer to them.
- What decisions did you make? What were the outcomes?
- What were your goals?
- Did you make any bad decisions?
- How did you measure your success? (Happiness percentage? Upgraded buildings?)
- What were your struggles?
- If you were to continue playing, what would you want to achieve?
- What were your responsibilities as mayor of your town? How would these compare to a real mayor?
- In pairs, learners will choose a city where their target language is spoken and research the mayor there. (A way to get sources in the target language: In Google Chrome, go to the options panel in the top right, then settings→ show advanced settings→ languages→ language and input settings, and change the language. When learners search in their target language, they should find sources in that language.)
- Next, learners will find an article (or wikipedia page, if they can’t find an article) about a mayor that discusses the leader's goals, struggles, and/or decisions. Learners may use dictionary resources, context clues, and interpretive reading to decipher main ideas in the article. In Part C of the activity worksheet, learners should define the context of their piece of writing, then write a short paragraph.
- To close the activity, learners should take turns discussing what they recorded in groups.
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