Online Games in ELT

This free course helps you explore the use of online games for language teaching, including virtual worlds, role-play, sandbox, multiplayer and mini games. English teachers, trainers, and experts from the games industry share their expertise and give advice on using games to provide opportunities for collaboration, communication and language practice, and for connecting with learners’ experiences and interests.

You’ll think about what makes a game good for language learning, evaluate games for your learners, problem-solve with other teachers and take away top tips and free lesson plans, including one of your own!

Who is it for?

Online Games in ELT is aimed at practising English language teachers and teacher trainers, but if you’re not currently teaching, you’ll still be able to join in. We have written this course to be accessible to teachers with a B1 level of English (CEFR) or above.

What will you do?

This is a three-week course and you’ll study for between 2 and 3 hours a week. You’ll be able to access the course at any time, but we advise you to keep a record of your notes. Each week’s content is divided into easy-to-tackle steps and you can do all steps in one go, or dip into the course to suit your schedule. You’ll learn through audio, video and text input including quizzes, checklists, case studies and lesson plans, and by trying out games for yourself!

We encourage you to join in with the discussion in each step and share your experiences, suggestions and ideas. This is an opportunity to find your own answers and to collaborate with other teachers with similar goals.

What will you achieve?

Week 1: The state of play

• Describe and give examples of online games for language teaching and learning.
• Identify potential benefits of using online games for language teaching and learning.
• Discuss how to overcome some of the challenges of using online games in your classroom.

Week 2: The game's up!

• Identify what makes a good game for language learning in your context.
• Identify ways of integrating commercial and language-learning games to enhance or transform language learning.
• Evaluate an online game for your teaching context.

Week 3: Game on!

• Identify ways of including online games in your lessons.
• Predict problems and generate solutions for using online games in lessons.
• Review and create a lesson plan for integrating online games into a lesson.