GAME ON

Funding programme

Erasmus+ KA220-ADU – Cooperation Partnerships in Adult Education

Project reference

2021-1-DE02-KA220-ADU-000033529

Period

2022–2022

Coordinating organisation

iberika Education Group gGmbH (Germany)

Participating countries

Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Spain

Official project website

Visit official website

GAME ON aimed to promote the social inclusion of adult migrants and refugees through practical language learning supported by physical and digital educational games.

The project focused on beginner-level language competencies (CEFR A1–A2), particularly those needed to communicate in everyday situations in the host country.

Its approach combines language practice, game-based activities, peer interaction and the professional development of language teachers.

Specific learning objectives

• Everyday communication: Develop basic language skills for communicating in common social situations.
• Vocabulary acquisition: Introduce and reinforce vocabulary concerning housing, health, shopping, employment, education and social relationships.
• Oral expression: Encourage learners to produce words, sentences and simple dialogues in the target language.
• Listening comprehension: Practise recognising words and understanding oral instructions.
• Reading comprehension: Develop the ability to interpret simple written instructions, sentences and everyday messages.
• Written expression: Practise constructing sentences using vocabulary and grammatical structures appropriate to A1/A2 levels.
• Grammar: Reinforce verb conjugations, sentence construction, questions and basic grammatical structures through game challenges.
• Practical language use: Prepare learners for situations such as shopping, visiting a doctor, looking for employment and communicating with public services.
• Confidence: Provide opportunities to practise speaking in an informal environment in which mistakes are accepted as part of learning.
• Peer interaction: Encourage cooperation, mutual assistance and communication between participants.
• Motivation: Increase engagement with language-learning activities through playful challenges and immediate feedback.
• Social inclusion: Support migrants’ ability to participate more independently in everyday social activities.
• Intercultural learning: Encourage interaction between people with different languages and cultural experiences.
• Teacher competences: Train educators to select, facilitate, adapt and evaluate physical and digital language-learning games.
• Educational accessibility: Develop practical resources suitable for adult beginners and adaptable to different language-learning needs.

The project addresses these objectives through different educational formats. Physical board and card games constitute an important component, but the collection also includes role-playing, movement activities, puzzles and digital quizzes.

These formats should be distinguished when analysing the specific educational contribution of Board Game-Based Learning.

GAME ON developed a multilingual collection of 37 educational games for beginner-level language learning, consisting of 24 physical games and 13 digital games according to the consortium’s final project report.

The collection is organised into six thematic modules covering everyday situations relevant to adult migrants and refugees.

The physical games include original educational board games, domino activities, memory games, bingo-style games and other card-based exercises.

Not all physical activities should be classified as tabletop board games. The collection also contains role-playing, mime, movement and classroom language games.

Main physical board games

1. Through the House

Through the House is a modular educational board game in which players explore five rooms of a house while completing language challenges.

Main characteristics:

• Learning level: A1.
• Educational theme: Housing, furniture, household objects and everyday communication.
• Format: Modular board assembled progressively from separate room sections.
• Player configuration: Teams of two or three learners.
• Components: Five room sections, four tokens, a customised six-sided die, challenge cards, special room cards and writing materials.
• Challenge cards: 20 writing/drawing cards, 20 speaking cards, 15 movement cards and 23 room-specific cards.
• Main mechanics: Roll-and-move, card-based challenges, team cooperation and progressive board construction.
• Game objective: Reach the final space, represented by a bed, and complete the corresponding challenge.

Players begin at the entrance of the house and advance by rolling the die.

Each space requires participants to complete a linguistic challenge. When a team finishes a room, it completes a special challenge that allows the next room to be added to the board.

Educational integration: Language production is required for progression. Players must speak, write, draw or interpret information relating to household situations.

The modular board provides a thematic progression through different domestic environments, although movement remains largely determined by dice rolls.

2. Marketopolis

Marketopolis is a competitive board game simulating movement through a shopping centre.

Main characteristics:

• Learning level: A1/A2.
• Players: 2–6.
• Educational theme: Shopping vocabulary and everyday purchasing expressions.
• Components: Board, die and player pawns.
• Main mechanics: Roll-and-move, oral language challenges, additional turns and movement penalties.
• Game objective: Be the first player to cross the finish line.

Each board space represents a location within a shopping centre.

After moving, participants must construct an appropriate spoken sentence identifying the shop and an item they wish to purchase.

A correct answer allows an additional roll, subject to the published two-roll limit per turn. An incorrect answer prevents further movement until the next turn.

Special spaces introduce penalties or movement effects associated with stairs, elevators, leisure areas and other locations.

Players reaching the same location cannot simply repeat the purchasing expression previously used by another participant.

Educational integration: Correct oral language production influences movement and progression. However, the game primarily rewards constructing appropriate sentences rather than simulating actual purchasing decisions or financial transactions.

3. Clock with Hours and Activities

This physical board game combines a conventional race structure with language exercises involving time, routines, verbs and grammatical tenses.

Main characteristics:

• Learning level: A1/A2.
• Player configuration: Pairs.
• Components: Board, die, player tokens, vocabulary cards and clock cards.
• Main mechanics: Roll-and-move, colour-coded challenges, sentence production and movement penalties.
• Educational theme: Daily activities, telling the time and grammatical constructions.
• Game objective: Reach the final board space before the other player.

Players advance according to dice results.

Different coloured spaces introduce different challenges, including constructing spoken or written sentences and answering questions.

Some spaces impose penalties requiring players to move backwards or return to the beginning.

Educational integration: Players practise vocabulary and grammar while progressing through the board. The main mechanics serve as a structure for presenting and repeating language exercises.

Other physical tabletop games

4. Shopping LOTO

A vocabulary lottery game using ten illustrated cards, 80 smaller tokens and ten larger shop-related tokens.

Participants read words aloud and associate them with the appropriate images. The first player to complete an illustrated card wins.

The educational material also proposes extending the activity through simulated conversations involving buying and selling goods.

5. Domino – Creating Sentences with Verbs and Images

A domino-style activity in which players match images with verbs or sentence structures and produce grammatically correct sentences.

The activity addresses approximately 24 verbs associated with education and training.

6. Memory – Say the Name

A memory-matching game in which participants associate images with written nouns and subsequently use the vocabulary in complete spoken sentences.

The project identifies 45 vocabulary items relating to education and training.

Other game-based activities

The remaining modules include activities such as Matchy Matchy!, Sudoku: Social Welfare, role-playing, storytelling, puzzles, scrambled sentences, mime, categories games, movement activities and digital quizzes.

These should not automatically be classified as original board games simply because the project groups them under the general term “games”.

Digital games

The consortium also developed 13 digital games, primarily using the Quizizz platform.

They include vocabulary quizzes, reading-comprehension activities, fill-in-the-gap exercises and other language-learning challenges.

They are complementary digital resources rather than physical tabletop board games.

Overall game approach: Mixed collection of original educational board games, physical tabletop activities, other non-digital language games and digital quizzes.

Resource availability: Complete descriptions and rules for the principal physical games are accessible through the six thematic modules. However, the functionality of every separate printable board and card attachment has not been independently confirmed.

GAME ON developed a non-formal game-based language learning methodology for adult migrants and refugees at CEFR A1/A2 levels.

The approach combines physical board and card games, collaborative language challenges, digital activities, teacher facilitation and opportunities for formative assessment.

The project provides a methodological guide and a structured teacher training programme covering the selection, development, implementation and evaluation of language learning games.

Methodological approach

1. Needs assessment: The partnership collected information from language teachers and migrant learners to identify practical language-learning challenges.
2. Definition of learning objectives: Games were designed around everyday vocabulary, basic grammar and communication competencies corresponding to CEFR A1/A2 levels.
3. Selection of relevant contexts: Six thematic modules organise activities around situations learners may encounter in their host countries.
4. Game selection: Teachers choose suitable physical or digital games according to participants’ language proficiency, learning needs and previous experience.
5. Preparation: Facilitators organise the board, cards, tokens and other components required by each activity.
6. Introduction to the rules: Teachers explain the game through simple instructions and demonstrations appropriate to beginner-level learners.
7. Active language production: Participants practise speaking, reading, writing or listening through the challenges embedded in the selected game.
8. Peer interaction: Several games involve pairs or small teams that must cooperate, exchange information or support one another.
9. Gameplay feedback: Correct responses may allow players to advance, collect cards, obtain points or complete a game objective.
10. Formative correction: Educators help learners identify linguistic difficulties and consolidate correct forms.
11. Reflection: Some activities include review, discussion or repetition of the vocabulary practised during gameplay.
12. Adaptation: Teachers may modify task complexity, linguistic content or group organisation to meet learners’ needs.

Role of physical board games

Through the House, Marketopolis and Clock with Hours and Activities provide recognisable tabletop structures through which learners practise language.

Players progress across boards, encounter challenges and receive consequences based partly on their linguistic responses.

The games encourage repeated production of words and sentences while providing recreational objectives.

However, the central mechanics are relatively simple, consisting mainly of dice movement, completing language tasks and reaching a final position.

Facilitator’s role

The teacher explains the rules, organises groups, provides linguistic support and checks responses.

In games involving spoken or written sentences, the facilitator may need to determine whether the language produced is appropriate before allowing progression.

The teacher training materials recommend matching game complexity to participants’ language level, explaining rules clearly and considering learners’ different experiences.

Reflection and debriefing

Several game descriptions contain a debriefing section, generally focusing on the vocabulary, grammar or communication skills practised.

The wider methodological guide discusses assessment and recommends using feedback to improve both gameplay and learning.

Nevertheless, the available game descriptions do not establish a uniform, structured post-game debriefing protocol applied across all six modules.

Reviewing vocabulary after a game should be distinguished from a detailed reflection process examining strategies, interpersonal interactions and the transfer of learning to everyday situations.

Teacher training

The project developed a 16-hour training curriculum covering:

• Foundations and benefits of Game-Based Learning.
• Classification and selection of educational games.
• Characteristics and learning needs of adult migrants and refugees.
• Definition of measurable learning objectives.
• Physical and digital games for grammar, vocabulary and communication.
• Practical testing of the games developed by the consortium.
• Adaptation of games to different learner characteristics.
• Development of new language-learning activities.
• Formative and summative assessment.

Distinctive methodological feature: A substantial collection of purpose-designed language-learning games supported by a structured programme for preparing educators to select, facilitate and adapt them.

GAME ON was implemented through an Erasmus+ cooperation partnership involving five organisations from Germany, France, Greece, Italy and Spain.

The project combined research into language-learning needs, game development, educator training, practical testing and multilingual dissemination.

Implementation

• European consortium: iberika Education Group gGmbH (Germany, coordinator), Élan Interculturel (France), IDEC (Greece), Centro per lo Sviluppo Creativo Danilo Dolci (Italy), and FAM Y LIAS – Recursos para la Diversidad (Spain).
• Project period: 1 January 2022 – 31 December 2023.
• Funding: EUR 276,218 under Erasmus+ KA220-ADU, according to the German National Agency’s approved project list.
• Initial research: The project conducted desk research and focus groups addressing the needs of adult migrants and language teachers.
• Methodological development: The partnership published a guide introducing Game-Based Learning for migrant language education.
• Educational game production: The consortium reports developing 37 language-learning games, consisting of 24 physical and 13 digital activities.
• Thematic organisation: Games were distributed across six modules addressing everyday language-learning situations.
• Teacher training: A 16-hour training programme was implemented in the five partner countries.
• Practical game testing: The consortium reports that its games were tested with migrants and refugees at A1/A2 levels through language-learning workshops in each partner country.
• Teacher feedback: Educators provided feedback on the suitability of different games and the practical challenges associated with implementation.
• Development refinement: Inputs from piloting informed the methodological documentation and the final educational resources.
• Multilingual publication: The project’s educational materials were released in English, German, Greek, Spanish, French and Italian.
• Dissemination: Partner organisations organised multiplier events and published information about the results through their institutional websites and project communications.
• Project completion: The final newsletter, published in December 2023, confirms completion of the educational resources and implementation activities.

Evaluation approach

The methodological guide distinguishes between evaluating the quality of an educational game and evaluating participants’ learning progress.

It identifies considerations such as clarity of instructions, suitability for the target group, participant enjoyment, completion of learning tasks and the need for modifications.

The teacher training curriculum also includes feedback forms and practical activities in which educators test games and evaluate their suitability.

Documented evidence

• Game development: Thirty-seven physical and digital learning games reported as completed.
• Board game documentation: Rules and learning objectives available for identifiable physical tabletop games.
• Teacher training: A structured 16-hour programme conducted across five partner countries.
• Educational implementation: Game-based workshops with migrant and refugee learners documented.
• Formative feedback: Teacher and learner feedback incorporated into development and methodological guidance.
• Participant experience: Project communications report positive perceptions of enjoyment, motivation and engagement.
• Learning outcomes: No sufficiently detailed, independently verified statistical results demonstrating improvements in language proficiency attributable specifically to the physical board games were identified.
• Social inclusion outcomes: No controlled longitudinal evidence establishing increased social inclusion as a direct result of board game participation was identified.

Evidence limitations

The project’s public communications report implementation but do not provide a complete final analytical sample for each physical game.

Initial numerical targets should not be treated automatically as achieved sample sizes.

The wider intervention combines board games, cards, role-playing, movement activities and digital quizzes, making it difficult to isolate the educational contribution of physical tabletop gameplay.

Although the methodology discusses formative and summative assessment, the availability of an evaluation framework does not establish that the games were tested using validated instruments or controlled comparisons.

Positive participant perceptions should therefore be interpreted as evidence of acceptability and engagement, not definitive proof of improved language proficiency.

Evidence status: Completed physical board game resources, teacher training and practical educational implementation documented. Learning effectiveness of individual board games remains unverified through controlled evaluation.

GAME ON provides a multilingual collection of educational resources supporting language learning through physical and digital games.

The resources were designed for adult migrants and refugees at CEFR A1/A2 levels and for educators working in language training and social inclusion programmes.

Available educational resources

• Methodological Guide: A publication explaining the principles of Game-Based Learning, game selection, learner motivation, implementation and educational evaluation.
• Desk Research and Good Practices: Comparative research addressing language learning and relevant educational practices in the five partner countries.
• Teacher Training Curriculum: A structured 16-hour programme supporting the use, evaluation and development of educational games.
• Teacher Training Guide: Detailed guidance concerning game-based teaching, adaptation and assessment.
• Training Handouts: Practical resources for educators attending the training programme.
• Training Slides: Presentations supporting delivery of the course.
• Education and Training Games: Physical board, domino and memory games, mime activities and digital language exercises.
• Health Games: Card-based activities, vocabulary matching, mime and digital quizzes.
• In the Market Games: Marketopolis, Shopping LOTO, word puzzles, movement activities and digital quizzes.
• Personal Identity and Housing Games: Through the House, mime, role-playing, movement games and digital exercises.
• Professional Life and Social Services Games: Role-playing, vocabulary exercises, sentence reconstruction, adapted Sudoku and online quizzes.
• Social Relationships, Hobbies and Entertainment Games: Storytelling, categories, mime, sentence construction and digital activities.
• Multilingual Documentation: The main resources are published in English, German, Greek, Spanish, French and Italian.
• Project Newsletters: Publications documenting game development, teacher training and piloting activities.

Physical game reproduction

The principal physical games have documented rules, components and educational objectives.

Several game descriptions include links to complementary printable resources, including boards, cards and other materials.

However, the current functionality of all these separate attachments could not be established during the review.

In particular, some attachments are linked through the project’s /media/ directory rather than through the main results repository.

Before independent reproduction, educators should verify that the necessary boards, cards and printable components remain accessible.

Open licensing

Several official project publications identify Creative Commons licensing conditions.

However, different project pages and PDF documents refer to different licence variants, including Attribution-ShareAlike and Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike.

Users should therefore consult the licence statement attached to each resource rather than assuming that all games and associated artwork share identical reuse conditions.

Transferability

The six thematic modules can be selected independently according to learners’ immediate communication needs.

The physical games use familiar components such as cards, boards, dice and tokens, making them potentially suitable for low-cost educational settings.

The material can also be adapted to different host-country languages, provided that vocabulary, grammatical structures and examples are appropriately revised.

Replicability assessment

The publicly available documentation provides a strong basis for understanding and reproducing the instructional procedures.

However, practical reproducibility of the original physical components cannot be fully confirmed until the individual print-and-play links have been verified.

The available public evidence is also insufficient to independently reproduce the project’s learning-effectiveness evaluation.

Replicability status: High for instructional documentation; physical component accessibility requires final verification; learning-outcome evaluation not independently reproducible.

Official resources:

• GAME ON – Complete Project Results
• Methodological Guide – English
• Teacher Training Curriculum – English
• Guide for Teachers – English
• Education and Training – Games
• Health – Games
• In the Market – Games
• Personal Identity and Housing – Games
• Professional Life and Social Services – Games
• Social Relationships, Hobbies and Entertainment – Games

GAME ON is a relevant European Game-Based Learning initiative because it places physical and digital games at the centre of its approach to adult language education.

The project developed a substantial collection of activities addressing practical communication needs among migrants and refugees and accompanied them with a methodological guide and structured teacher training.

For the European Board Game-Based Learning Observatory, its main contribution lies in demonstrating how physical tabletop systems can support vocabulary and grammar practice within a non-formal educational programme.

Methodological strengths

1. Central role of games: Physical and digital games are principal project outputs rather than isolated recreational activities.
2. Identifiable physical board games: Through the House, Marketopolis and Clock with Hours and Activities have documented boards, components, rules and learning objectives.
3. Connection with everyday communication: The project addresses practical linguistic situations associated with shopping, housing, health, education, employment and social relationships.
4. Alignment with language levels: Games are designed for beginner-level learners corresponding to CEFR A1/A2.
5. Opportunities for active language production: Several games require participants to produce spoken or written sentences as part of gameplay.
6. Modular design: Through the House progresses across different rooms, combining physical board development with changing thematic challenges.
7. Variety of educational formats: The collection provides several approaches to vocabulary, grammar and communication practice.
8. Peer interaction: Some activities encourage learners to collaborate, explain concepts and assist one another.
9. Teacher development: The project offers a structured 16-hour course addressing game selection, facilitation, adaptation and evaluation.
10. Practical implementation: The consortium reports educational testing with migrants and refugees in the five partner countries.
11. Multilingual documentation: The main resources are accessible in six European languages.
12. Resource preservation: The official website continues to provide the methodological guide and thematic game descriptions following project completion.

Methodological limitations

1. Educational content is frequently added to conventional game mechanics. Several physical games use familiar roll-and-move, domino, memory or lottery structures.

The educational contribution generally arises from vocabulary recognition or the completion of linguistic tasks rather than from complex relationships represented through the game system.

2. Limited mechanical innovation. The project adapts traditional educational game formats, which may be effective for structured practice but offer relatively limited strategic depth or player agency.

3. Uneven integration between learning and gameplay. In Marketopolis, constructing an appropriate sentence determines whether a player may advance, creating a direct connection between language production and progression.

However, the activity remains largely a sequence of vocabulary challenges organised through dice movement.

4. Limited simulation of authentic conversations. Being able to produce a shopping-related sentence in Marketopolis does not necessarily demonstrate the ability to manage a spontaneous conversation with a shop assistant.

Real interactions may require listening comprehension, clarification, negotiation of meaning and responses to unexpected questions.

5. Potential confusion between different game formats. The consortium reports 24 physical games, but this figure includes activities such as mime, role-playing, puzzles and movement games.

These activities should not all be classified as physical board games in a specialised research observatory.

6. Variable educational complexity. The physical games differ substantially in the cognitive and linguistic demands placed on participants.

Recognising a matching image in a memory activity is not equivalent to producing a coherent dialogue or responding appropriately in a real-life situation.

7. Limited structured debriefing. Several activity descriptions include review or debriefing sections, but these are often brief and focus on the language content practised.

A consistent methodology for connecting gameplay with subsequent real-world communication is not established across all games.

8. Dependence on facilitator judgement. Some games require teachers to decide whether a sentence is grammatically and contextually appropriate before allowing a player to progress.

Without clear assessment criteria, similar responses may receive different evaluations from different educators.

9. No verified game-specific effectiveness results. The project documents implementation and positive feedback, but the reviewed sources do not establish controlled improvements in language proficiency attributable to individual physical games.

10. Unverified long-term transfer. The documentation does not demonstrate that participants became more effective at using the host-country language in everyday social interactions as a direct consequence of the board games.

11. Incomplete verification of printable components. The game manuals are available, but the continued accessibility of certain supplementary boards and cards remains to be confirmed.

12. Licensing differences between publications. Project documents identify different Creative Commons licence variants. Reuse permissions should be checked separately for the individual resources.

Ludus Magnus assessment

GAME ON provides a substantial example of purpose-designed educational games for adult language learning.

Its inclusion in the Observatory is justified by the development of identifiable physical board games supported by learning objectives, rules, methodological documentation and educational implementation.

Nevertheless, the collection illustrates a common approach in educational game design: incorporating curriculum-related questions and tasks into familiar recreational structures.

In Marketopolis, players advance around a board representing a shopping centre, but success depends primarily on producing appropriate purchasing expressions.

The board provides thematic context and motivation, while the educational challenge consists of a conventional language-production exercise.

Clock with Hours and Activities follows a similar model, requiring players to respond to questions and construct sentences according to the spaces reached.

Through the House offers a somewhat richer structure because progression involves a modular board, team interaction and several categories of linguistic challenges.

Its use of different rooms creates a coherent thematic environment and opportunities to practise language associated with domestic situations.

However, the available rules do not establish a complex simulation of everyday communication. Progression remains strongly influenced by dice rolls and task completion.

From a methodological perspective, the strongest educational value of these activities may lie in increasing opportunities for language practice, reducing reluctance to speak and providing repeated exposure to vocabulary in a more engaging setting.

Their effectiveness should therefore be assessed through relevant linguistic measures rather than recreational performance alone.

A valuable future study would compare one of the board games with a non-game activity requiring equivalent vocabulary, sentence production and participant interaction.

This would help establish whether the game structure provides additional educational benefits beyond the exercises themselves.

Another comparison could examine a traditional educational board game and an existing commercial recreational game adapted to require meaningful communication in the target language.

Such research could explore differences in spontaneous conversation, engagement, vocabulary retention and transfer to everyday situations.

The project’s teacher training programme is an additional methodological strength because it recognises that successful Game-Based Learning depends on appropriate instructional design and facilitation.

Finally, the distinction between the complete collection and its genuine tabletop games is important for the Observatory.

GAME ON reports 37 educational games, but only those verified as physical tabletop games should be entered individually into the board game database.

Role-playing, movement exercises and digital quizzes should remain part of the wider project description without being counted as board games.

Transferable methodological lesson: Physical tabletop games can provide structured opportunities for practising vocabulary, grammar and basic communication in adult language education. However, the presence of a board or cards does not automatically create deep integration between educational content and game mechanics. The added educational value of the game structure, as distinct from the language exercises it contains, requires appropriate comparative evaluation.

Observatory eligibility consideration: GAME ON meets the thematic criteria for inclusion because it developed several identifiable physical board games within a substantial game-based language-learning programme. Final publication should follow verification of the individual printable components required for independent reproduction.