games – AI in ELT

Games: Taboo

Today we are going to explore a Gen.AI version of the popular game Taboo. The game is simple (but not always easy to play). Players must describe a target word without using a list of specific ‘taboo’ words that are closely related to it. The goal is for teammates to guess the target word based on the description, but the challenge lies in avoiding the obvious words that would make it easier to guess. If a player uses a forbidden word, they lose the round.

Graded readers

Today I’d like to share a couple of games inspired by graded readers that can be played live in class with no prior material preparation. All we need to do is type a prompt into ChatGPT (or copy and paste it from a Word or online document). I can guarantee maximum student participation and engagement.

Chunk chain

This is a variation of the popular language game Word Chain, where players take turns saying words, with each new word starting with the last letter of the previous word. In this Gen.AI-assisted version, students will take turns competing against Gen. AI (this time I will be using Claude) with a focus on language chunks.

Games: Family Fortunes

There are many language games that we can create or adapt for our language classroom using Gen. AI. One of my favourite board games for the classroom is Family Fortunes. I own the board game, which I resort to once in a blue moon for a bit of fun. In this blog post I am going to try to share a few ideas on how things could unfold if we use Gen.AI instead.

Escape room

Today we are going to design an escape room activity with the help of Chat GPT to find inspiration, ideas and a few text-based tasks, which will save us time in the process. We will still need to create cards –whether with or without technology-decorate the classroom, hide clues, and so on. However, Gen. AI can, once again, provide a good starting point and save us precious time by offering a theme and a handful of ready-made tasks.