Language learning with 3rd world farmer

3rd World Farmer
 
Gamification typically involves applying game design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging.  For my blog topic on language learning, I chose "Third World Farmer."  In this game, you build a farm and decide what plants to grow in your fields and what livestock to maintain.   There are risks to most decisions as I quickly found out that bad weather can affect your yield.  I think this game would be excellent for teaching students how to communicate amongst each other.  As I read in one of the articles, assignments could be given to have students write as if they were the farmers asking for a loan from the bank or a paper where they describe the problems of a third world farmer. 

I played the game several times.  At first I didn't want to take risks in the game but as I played and got more familiar with it I took bigger risks.  It seemed the more risks I would take the more often I would get struck with disasters. Eventually I got tired of playing when I realized there was no hope of growing any bigger than I was and that random disaster could take me to zero instantly.  Despite the low replay value, I think students would have fun with it and enjoy the language learning assignments involved with it. 

I would have students play the game individually and then have them use their reflections with writing assignments.  As the teacher I would supervise the conversations and make sure they are staying on topic.  I would not use a walk through for the game because there isn't one, but I would give instructions on how to play and work with students that had trouble with the game concepts.  The game is just to make the learning more fun, the actual assignment would be based on the games story.  Images could be used from the game to promote basic language skills like making flash cards of items from the game and having students memorize the vocabulary.