This summer was a success in terms of getting the physical version of Zoundslike out into the world. I visited a total of five ESL schools (three in Los Angeles and two in Boston). As an experiment, I also went to one Thai temple in Los Angeles (where I had heard they sometimes offered classes), and the memory care unit at my parents’ retirement community.
The Thai temple and the Memory Care unit didn’t go well. I demo’ed the game to a group of people sitting outside the temple. One little girl, age eight, zoomed through the “Advanced” cards and spelled each word flawlessly, prompting me to question the words I chose, not to mention my confidence in the game altogether and my belief in a higher power. I chalked it up to having run into the occasional genius kid.
The memory care unit presented a different set of problems. Many of the players (one cannot call them “learners,” since they once knew how to spell these words) struggled to play. Some couldn’t hear me explain the rules. Some couldn’t see the whiteboard I had set up. Some couldn’t understand the rules no matter how many times I explained them. In short, I don’t think the game was the best choice for them.
My visit to the ESL schools went much better. Both the schools in Los Angeles and in Boston offered me the chance to visit multiple classes with levels ranging from Beginner to Advanced. As I had hoped, all the students seemed engaged. One director emailed me to say, “the day after you visited they [the students] specifically requested to play your game rather than doing the regular lesson plan, so it sounds like it was well-received.” Several teachers approached me afterward to say they planned to use it.
Next step: the App!
