I used Warhammer to teach English

[MajorMcNicol]

Hello: I just wanted to put a link here to a recent blog post I did about using Warhammer to teach English.

Link: http://andygomez.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/using-warhammer-to-teach-english/

There are a fair number of large pictures, so I thought just linking to the blog makes more sense than reformatting for the forum. I also am not doing this so much to say, look how great I am, but rather to encourage people to try similar projects, and to bring their hobby more into the other spheres of their lives.

In short, last year I was teaching English in Kosova, and I held an extracurricular class once or twice a week for high (English) ability students. The great power of Warhammer was to interest them and compel them with the art and background, and give them a framework to work within. I also used the project to teach about the writing process (drafts, editing, etc.).

I am pretty proud of the project, and hope you find it interesting!

[wittdooley]

1. Awesome stuff. I used some very basic RPG stuff to work on character development with 6th graders when I was student teaching. They loved it because it was completely theirs.

2. Can I get the kid from the first example to do the script for all of my warhammer stuff? His penmanship is very "warhammer"

3. This is just a suggestion, and I don't know if it even applies to you because it's not in the states, but typically you should fuzz out the last names when putting anything online. Hopefully it's less of an issue because you're not in the US, but just a heads up. It's an issue in the states because of how litigeous we are. Fail to that right?

4. Best of luck finding something when you get back to the US. English teaching jobs are functionally impossible to find in the midwest.

Great work though, and it certainly looked rewarding!

[Stad]

At first I thought you were making fun of editing issues. I came across a classroom MMO plan and could see running your classroom like a warhammer MMO. Earn xp for assignments, participating in class. Class battles of knowledge...

[Hellstorm]

That is very cool. I wish I had you as a teacher when I was growing up. Then English might not have been such a boring class.

[MaltonNecromancer]

Never tried Warhammer before. But, I've had very good results using Doctor Who, Resident Evil, and White Wolf's World of Darkness.

There's lots of ways to integrate hobbies into education. :) Being a teacher is good fun (apart from the marking, meetings, people generally hating you, everyone thinking they know how your job works, everyone complaining about the extra holidays you get when they never realise you don't get paid for them, the government shifting the educational goalposts every two years for no other reason than to gain votes with parents, Michael Gove in general, and people who didn't understand the pensions situation complaining that we shouldn't have gone on strike despite the government stealing £46.4 billion from us but getting away with it by manipulating gullible Daily Fail readers 9and Jeremy Clarkson) into thinking that teacher's pensions are paid for by taxpayers when they aren't.) But as I say, teaching itself is properly awesome.

[Redegeneration]

Learning is always easier when you are distracted with fun :D.Its funny my girlfriend did a lesson with her class but using angry birds. But that's great that you were able to teach them more then a language, but a way of life! Keep rocking on across the land.

[MajorMcNicol]

Thanks for the kind words and the suggestions. Someday I hope to teach a similar class again, although for the next time I think I will try to focus on the writing process with drafts, peer reviews, etc.

@ Stad - I am certainly not trying to make fun of the editing issues / misspellings and such in the documents. Despite the effort we put into editing and rewriting, there were still some errors, sure - but I did not see that as a problem. Not for this extra-curricular class at least: I was mostly focusing on the conversing in English during class time.

@ wittdooley - About the last names, mine is the only one that appears on the website, none of the students' do. I leave mine up, although I do worry about identity theft issues and similar, for some copyright issues. Also, I am glad you noticed the penmanship in the second example! The student had his grandfather write it for him - impressive, I agree.

Thanks to all, too, for the teaching/classroom ideas!

[Orminah]

I like that you used Warhammer to teach, very inspiring. I'm considering being a teacher one day and hopefully, I could work my hobby into my lessons as well. Haha.

[Roma89q]

haha very cool! My brother is an english teacher and likes the hobby, perhaps I should show him this. Again, nice job :)

[Xenith]

Great job! Army list building also helps with the maths.

[Stad]

My local librarian was able to book several BL authors to come down for a weekend. I'm trying to rally the local students to partake...

[MajorMcNicol]

@ Xenith - ha ha that's true...maybe that's why making lists always takes me so long ;)

@ Roma89q - hope he likes it/finds it helpful!

@ Stad - a meeting with Black Library authors sounds like a great opportunity to get serious academic processes discussed, like the writing process, the creative process, editorships, etc. Hope the event goes/went well!

[muse1c]

Great story, and good initiative on your part!