As it said in the article “7 thinks you should know about gamification” that “Gamification is the application of game elements in non-gaming situations, often to motivate or influence behavior”. In academy, “gamification typically employs elements such as points, badges, or progress bars to engage or motivate students in the learning process.” Using games in teaching does enjoy many benefits since gaming can engage students in the mental situation of “flow ”, which refers to “a mental state experienced during challenging activities in a comfortable zone between 'anxiety' and 'boredom', where the activity at hand is neither too difficult to be frustrating, nor too easy to be menial”. Therefore, students will not feel boring in the game-included learning process.
I find that a room escape game named “Golden Coins Room escape” is really a good game to use in an ESL class. This game is not too difficult to success but it is still challenging, therefore it will not take too much time on figuring out the solution and students will not feel boring or lose their confidence as well. I decide to use it in teaching vocabulary of household articles. I may divide my students into pairs. In the process of playing the game, they should write down what household articles they find and how they use them. I will also conduct a competition among students: the group who find out all the articles and escape first will be winner. In this process, I will be the guide, if students cannot find new clues I will provide some hints to them. After the game, I will use a match test with the pictures of the household articles and their names to test if students really acquire the new knowledge. I think room escape game is very suitable to use in a vocabulary class since it provides pictures to students directly. Moreover, students need to use them to solve problems therefore they can remember them deeply.
