'Escape 2 Educate': a metodologia "Escape Room" no ensino de inglês no 1º CEB
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34630/sensos-e.v6i2.3466Keywords:
escape the room methodology, gamification pedagogy, primary English, 21st Century SkillsAbstract
Some studies related to the implementation of the “Escape Room” methodology (Guigon 2018) in secondary school learning contexts have started to emerge, focusing on the way the use of this type of approach could foster the development of 21st century skills (Cruz & Orange, 2016), namely critical thinking, problem-solving and collaboration. However, little has been seen about the effects of this methodology in primary school pupils.
This paper aims at both presenting the ‘Escape 2 Educate’ project and discussing the implementation of an “Escape Room” approach in primary English learning settings. Within the scope of this project, pupils were locked inside a classroom, and in order to escape – and therefore win the game –, they had to overcome a series of challenges using specific knowledge and skills acquired in English lessons.
By following an ethnographic methodological approach, we observed practices based on the ‘Escape Room’ methodology with a group of pupils learning English in the 2nd/3rd years, in which they were invited to answer quizzes, solve riddles, write messages, solve problems, to critically analyse videos, etc. The results show that tasks based on the ‘Escape the classroom” methodology promote collaborative behaviour amongst pupils, which in - turn, fosters creative problem-solving and critical thinking in the classroom. In fact, this methodology, as a gamified experience that allows learning to be engaging, meaningful and experiential (Fernández-Corbacho, 2014), can be a very interesting and amusing way of fostering the development of skills, not only for those who learn, but also for those who teach.
