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TitleIngress Novice Activity: Places for Portals
SourceCASLS Activity of the Week
Body

Kathryn Carpenter is the CASLS Curriculum Development Assistant and Graduate Teaching Fellow. She is currently completing her MA in Linguistics with a Language Teaching Specialization at the University of Oregon.

Ingress Novice Activity

Places for Portals: Where are they?

In this activity, novice learners of any language supported by the Ingress app will use the portal location vocabulary to describe characteristics of places in which portals are located. Through these descriptions, learners will be able to note what common characteristics exist among portals and will use that knowledge to produce, present, and justify an idea for a place to put a new portal.

Objectives: 

Learners will be able to:

  • list various places around town and describe their locations.
  • discuss and defend their ideas with their peers.
  • give feedback to others.

Modes: Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Speaking, Presentational Writing 

Resources: Ingress worksheet, Ingress app, Definitions from Ingress, teacher tip sheet, game description

Procedure:

  1.       Learners play Ingress individually or in groups for 30 minutes. Especially when working with novice-low and novice-mid learners, it is fine to play in the first language so that learners may gain familiarity with the game. As they play, learners should note areas that they went to in their city on their own sheet of paper.
  2.       Learners will form pairs or small groups to work with the Ingress worksheet. Learner groups will start by completing questions 1 and 2 on the worksheet together. Make sure to tell learners to use this time to get help with vocabulary they do not know and places they cannot describe. This help may be solicited from the teacher or other classmates.
  3.       Regroup as a class and discuss with students what types of places serve as  portals and how the students have described them. Possible categories to discuss include community areas and busy or convenient places.
  4.      Next, students will complete question 3 on the Ingress worksheet individually and will join their small groups again to share their answers.
  5.      Individually, have learners think of a new place to put a portal  and write a description of why it would be a good place. This portal can be in their town or another place that they have visited. Learners should be informed that the selection of a new portal is a competition, and classmates will be voting on their favorite portal proposal. Learners will organize their thoughts by filling out the back of the worksheet. They will also draw a picture, write the name of the portal, and answer the related questions. Emphasize, however, that they should not write their names or fill out the comments section. 
  6.      As a class the teacher and learners should brainstorm about how to give constructive feedback and how to defend ideas. Here are some questions to discuss with the class:
    1. How can we give helpful feedback? How do we make our feedback constructive?
    2. What is an example of unhelpful feedback?
    3. Teacher: “If I proposed a portal location idea in the middle of a dangerous factory, very far away, how would you give me helpful comments in a kind way, to improve my idea?” Learners should brainstorm and answer.
    4. How can you defend or explain your ideas? Teacher can give the following examples.
      1. I chose X (the factory location) because Y (it’s different than all the other places).
      2. I like my idea because X (it’s an adventure for Ingress players).
      3. You’re right, I will think about that. My idea might be X (too dangerous). Thank you.
  7.      Students will individually present their ideas for where they would put a portal to the class (in larger classes, it is fine to have students collaborate and present in groups). Presentations should be 30-60 seconds each and should include some sort of explanation as to why the proposed portal is a good one. Encourage idea communication above grammatical correctness, and have other students ask WH questions (questions that include who, what, where, when, why and how) about each presenter’s ideas. The presenters should be prepared to explain their reasons and defend their ideas a best as possible, staying in the target language as much as they can. 
  8.      Students will anonymously post their worksheets, back side up, around the class. They will all walk around and write constructive comments until each form has at least five comments written. Then, they will vote on three of their classmates’ suggestions by marking tallies on the bottom of the worksheets.
  9.      The teacher will collect the top three ideas, describe them to class, and the class will vote on them. The teacher may wish to provide a reward for the winning idea.
  10.      As a possible follow-up, students can potentially submit their idea for a new portal if the place they suggested doesn’t already have one at http://ingressportal.com/research/portals/creating-new-portals/ and https://support.ingress.com/hc/en-us/articles/207343987-Candidate-Portal-criteria
Publishdate2015-11-09 02:15:02