Differentiating Codenames

            For practice, I am going to write out how I think I could differentiate the game Codenames right out of the box. These thoughts came to me while I watched my ESL class play. I tried to observe all the different skills involved with the game and how the students were interacting. I noticed three major skills being practiced; speaking, listening, and vocabulary. Using this as the basis, I think I can effectively differentiate Codenames.

            Codenames is a word game where one player gives clues to their team that describes a word on a card. The cards are in a five-by-five grid and each card has a secret red or blue value. The only people who know these values are the leaders of the two teams. The leaders give the clues and the team needs to guess. The team that reveals all their cards first wins.

            One way language learning students vary in readiness and progress is in the different skills. Some students are strong readers but poor speakers. Good listeners are not always good writers. These skills are not completely separate, but progress in one area rarely correlates to progress in another. Knowing how Codenames works, and knowing my students’ weaknesses, I can assign them appropriate roles to practice individual skills. I do not want to always see my best speakers always being the leaders and giving clues. I can assign them to dictionary duty where they translate unknown vocabulary words for their team. This does double duty of getting my weaker speakers more speaking practice and allowing my stronger speakers to practice another skill. However, if I feel the team needs to practice their listening skills, I will recommend the strongest speaker give the clues. This is because my listeners need to hear examples of fluid, if not fluent, English. A weak speaker will speak choppily and in short, often unconnected phrases. That will not help my students improve their listening.

            I wrote how board games are good for differentiation because of their nature. Another reason they can be differentiating is that teachers might need to justify why they are playing games in class. Only by breaking a game down to the individual skills involved can a teacher understand a game’s educational benefits. The differentiation will come more easily after the game has been thoroughly dissected and examined.