Gamification: Serious Games

For the 'serious game' category, I decided to try a game called, 3rd World Farmer. I had to play this game a couple times before I understood the complete object of the game. After I played around with this particular serious game, I browsed around some other ones on the website, Games for Change.  This website offers a variety of other games that are purposely created to relate to real-world events to foster learning in defense, scientific exploration, agriculture, etc.  

For this particular game, I would like to incorporate different language learning objectives. Due to the higher level of vocabulary used in this game, I feel that incorporating this lesson with another content area such as science or math would be more appropriate and meaningful to the students.  The language learning objectives would require the students to recognize and label farming/agriculture vocabulary.  I would like to later assess the students again by providing visuals away from the game, to truly see if the vocabulary is retained. Another language objective that can be incorporated into this game would be the use of their oral fluency. The student will fully describe the steps they used to complete and build their farm. This will build their confidence in speaking because they are able to describe something that will hopefully be interesting to them, while the teacher can assess at the same time.