English as Second Language- Role Play Game

[cloa513]

I am teaching English to some Japanese families.

For the adult learners, I made a simple board game with a little of a RPG element. They have little experience of fantasy or board games- they didn't know monopoly. I teach them twice a month. My material expense -fortunately I have a lot of books and other materials from Australia.


Basically I found this http://670.wikispaces.com/RPG-ESL-Game-DesignDocument
where they didn't complete the game and I used the map shown. I just had the students move their token around the map. Using cards, they can solve, using unique descriptive words, challenges such pass by a large "mouse trap" trap, a checkpoint, a spider, a chest. Also solve one word jumbles. And finally at the individual destinations- aerie, mountain, cave, shipwreck- they need to verbally describe how to get to point.


Now I thinking that I will make a role-playing game with descriptive solutions to problems. My first thought is a linear game where they fall into a underground maze with a pack that is Dungeoneering Kit (Pathfinder) plus a fisherman hook and they have to solve problems like get over a pit, climb a cliff, use pulleys to raise a slippery sharp tree. More ideas wanted please? Is there an adventure with all descriptive solutions to little situations or a way to be not so linear?

I am trying to avoid fantasy words (unless it used commonly too) as it enough effort teaching all the words to that will need before it. I'd like to use game with the children that I teach (one family I meet twice a month and the other is generally once a week) but who will need even more support.

[phaedrusxy]

There are Choose Your Own Adventure books which could be the basis for something like this. It's a very interesting concept, and I could see it being quite popular if made and marketed well, especially if you make it something hosted online.

[Frogman55]

This is cool, although I could imagine that success is pretty dependent on how willing the students are to be immersed in the game. Those individuals (which I presume exist in every culture) who dislike the very concept of fantasy and pretend may not respond well.

Wasn't there a study somewhere that showed that kids who played tabletop RPGs had a higher level of reading comprehension and a bigger vocabulary than others? It may have been anecdotal, but I swear I saw it once.

[cloa513]

Its really total lack of exposure. Japan is more cliquey than America or other western country. Manga is read by school boys, the otaku clique in universities and salarymen- bored permanent workers with long commutes in crowded trains. There isn't the mass-marketing of fantasy and other than the idle housewives and elderly.  Japanese generally have overfull lives already.