View Content #27354

For learners to engage with language in the wild, they need to develop a series of critical skills and dispositions - noticing, sorting, analysis, subjectivity, and awareness (see this week's Topic of the Week). This activity is designed to use gameplay to help learners engage in said skill development.

Objectives

Learners will be able to:

• Identify and evaluate communication strategies that they employ during gameplay.
• Connect the communication strategies used during gameplay to spontaneous language use in the wild.

Mode(s): Interpersonal

Procedure

1. Discuss communication with the class. Ask that they answer the following questions:
   1. How do you know communication has been successful?
   2. How do you know when communication has been unsuccesful?
   3. What strategies (e.g. mitigation) do you use to ensure communication has been successful? Repair when it has been unsuccessful?
2. Explain to learners that they will put their communication skills to the test in a game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf  (https://www.fgbradleys.com/rules/rules2/OneNightUltimateWerewolf-rules.pdf). In this game,  everyone has a secret identity, one or two players are werewolves, and the other players try to figure out who they are.
3. Go over the rules with learners briefly.
4. Let the learners play through once so that they get comfortable with the mechanics. (Note: You will need to download the free app or read from the script.) 
5. Have the learners play again. Ask them to pay attention to the communication strategies they used during the discussion.
6. Debrief the experience by having learners note:
   1. How they analyzed language and used that information to make choices in what to say/how to say information.
   2. Their reasoning for choosing to communicate in the way that they did.
   3. The impact of what their language choices had on their fellow interlocutors.
7. Then, discuss how their notes relate to in the wild, spontaneous communication. Have learners make a list of the skills and communication strategies they noticed and used on the board. This list will be their “In the Wild” tool kit.

Notes: Learners may find the practice of updating their “In the Wild” tool kit at regular intervals throughout their language study.