Games help develop cognition, communication skills and social skills. The internet has widened the range of modalities available for learning and opened global access to education resources that were expensive or unavailable before. Information and communication technology (ICT) therefore offers great educational opportunities for all. Online games for teaching language include games specifically for people learning English as a second language. Many online games are free, particularly those for use in schools and tertiary institutions.

However, educational institutions in developing and middle-income countries often have limited budgets and therefore limited ICT facilities, with few/old computers and limited internet access. Six of the ten countries with the most expensive data in the world are in sub-Saharan Africa (IOL, 2021). But old-school games also deliver educational benefits. Games that can be used for students of all ages (from pre-primary to adults) to improve language skills include crosswords and wordsearches, card games, general knowledge games and quizzes, and board games like Scrabble (Speck, n.d.).

30 Seconds is a word-guessing board game developed in South Africa and now produced in many other countries including Ireland, Germany and Australia. To move along the board, players have thirty seconds to describe the words and terms on a card (drawn from a box) to their teammates without using the words or rhyming words. The team moves on one block for every word guessed. The game, while entertaining, exercises players’ vocabularies, communication skills and thinking skills, and tests their general knowledge. There is a lot of noise and interaction between players so they hone their social and conversational (spoken language) skills. There is a Junior version for younger players.

A similar concept was used for a low-cost board game developed at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in Gqeberha, South Africa, to familiarise students on the Pharmacy Technician course with English pharmaceutical terms (Fogarty, 2019).

There are eleven official languages in South Africa. One of them, English, is the language of instruction for most primary and secondary education but is the first language or mother tongue for only 4.89 million of the country’s 59.3 million citizens (USAID,2020). South African students need at least 30% in English (the medium of instruction at the university) for admission to NMU. There are also over 1,000 international students from more than 60 countries, for some of whom English is a second language. Therefore, students may still struggle with English as the language of learning. On top of this, health sciences courses introduce many new terms.

The board game was developed primarily to improve the students’ vocabulary for the course, lessening the anxiety associated with learning in a second language, while the game itself would also deliver social benefits. In South Africa, mobile data was expensive until recently (Majola, 2021) and free Wifi is not widely available, while internet speeds can be slow. Therefore, the NMU game was designed as a low-cost alternative to online learning games, with the added benefit of focusing on terms drawn from textbooks and class notes for the course, and from legislation, with some unrelated words included for entertainment value. Terms were graded according to difficulty and sorted into categories. Each term was printed on a separate game card, with the definition on the back to help the ‘Describer’.

In testing the game, the developers found that players were active and enthusiastic throughout the game. The developers learned that different students experienced the game in different ways. Some students were not familiar with board games and needed a practice round to familiarise themselves with playing the game. Fogarty likened this to the effect of the digital divide, where different backgrounds and genders influence players’ experience of games.

Illustrating the point that written language and spoken language are different modalities, some students reverted to their home languages to explain terms. The developers decided that this was ultimately helpful as it enabled students to learn the terminology, thus improving comprehension of the course material.

References:

Fogarty, T.-L. (2019). A description of gamification in teaching second language pharmacy students. Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth. https://pharmacyeducation.fip.org/pharmacyeducation/article/view/771

Majola, G. (April, 2021). SA ranks 136th worldwide for the cost of mobile data. Independent Online (IOL). https://www.iol.co.za/business-report/companies/sa-ranks-136-worldwide-for-the-cost-of-mobile-data-e2536315-ed01-4eab-a0f5-ec101398a0d4

Speck, C. (n.d.). Using traditional games with language learners. BusyTeacher.org. https://busyteacher.org/25014-using-traditional-games-with-language-learners.html

USAID. (2020). Language of instruction country profile: South Africa. United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Washington, D.C. https://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00X9JQ.pdf