Anglického Jazyka, K., Randall, A. M., Autor, M. A., Et, B., & Schormová, B. L. (n.d.). MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA PEDAGOGICKÁ FAKULTA Larp (Live Action Role-Playing) as a Teaching Tool.
LARP
Enables teaching through non-traditional methods
Involve learners actively in their classes
Offers a safe environment in which students can experience different situations
Enables students opportunities to observe how they can influence these situations by their decisions
Safety
Physical
Psychological
Using LARP as a teaching tool
Defining the aims of an activity:
Role playing in Education
Has been used for a long time inside and outside of the classroom
Various forms of simulations are used in classes to illustrate processes in society (elections, court sittings, market behaviour in economy)
Experience different non-standard situations in psychology, experiential education and psychotherapy
Role playing became the main teaching tool in some Nordic schools.
Perceived as an entertainment for adolescents and young adults rather than education.
Close relationship to experiential education offers a wide range of topics and is well adaptable for educational purposes.
Role Playing Activities
Role Playing Exercises
Simulations
LARP
All activities which are used to practice conversational structures and communicative skills.
Short duration
Usually prepared for smaller groups of learners
Participants are given a setting (similar to the real one in which they would use such conversational structures), task and often a desired structure of the activity
Aim of the activity is predominantly to practice, not to learn or discover new things
Level of improvisation is rather low, because the situation does not require it
No need to differentiate the role from the player
Not based on process of decision taking
Learners do not get to significantly affect or change the situation given in the exercise.
Teacher has at disposal an activity that is primarily designed to practice the desired topic.
If a teachers wants to offer encough conversational excercises, s/he has to create also his/her own activities
"Role play is a technique that allows the exploration and discussion of patient-, process-, and environment centered skills. This is a small group excercise where, after reading brief descriptions of the part they are to play, two or three learners simulate a situation before a group of observers. Although the learners are assigned scenarios, much of what they bring to the role play reflects their own response and bias. Role play, therefore, can be a powerful way of self-discovery and self-understanding not only for the simulators but also for the observes who respond to what they see simulated." Lane et al., 2001
"the activity of producing conditions which are similar to real ones, especially in order to test something, or the conditions that are produced." Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (2013)
"acting out or mimicking an actual or probable real life condition, event or situation ... they are gross simplifications of the reality because they include only a few of the real-world factors..." Business Dictionary (2013)
Such kind of activity that enables the participant to experience a situation, that is close to the real life conditions. In simulation participant gets an opportunity to watch consequences of his/her decisions in safe environment of simulation.
Focused on processes and sets of events
Should prepare the learner to act more successfully when facing similiar situations in real life
Explore how different processes work and which factors influence them.
Usually longer, often with a time limit and is structured in order to have a clear output.
There are given conditions under which participants are considered successful or unsuccessful
Beneficial to offer feedback.
Level of improvisation is usually high because participants need to employ all the knowledge and skills s/he has, and even though the activity is usually designed to employ some particular set of skills, it in practice requires more than these.
There is not usually a stressed difference between the participant and the role. Participants represent themselves and act the way they would under the given conditions.
Apply their own ideas and opinions in situations where it is safe to make mistakes and explore their consequences
Help the participants develop their skills, not discourage them
Helps students to evaluate their attitudes and methods and modify them if necessary
Offers similar experience as simulations, though it more often words with situations which are more abstract, so not as directly connected to real world experience
Work with social relations and emotions
"A live role-playing game is a dramatic and narrative game form that takes place in a physical environment. It is a story-telling system in which players assume character roles that they portray in person, through action and interaction. The game world is an agreed upon environment located in both space and time, and governed by a set of rules - some of which must be formal and quantifiable" - Falk and Davenport (2004)
Participants accept a role, which is different from what s/he knows from their life. "the primary enjoyment comes from acting like somebody else" (Aonsson et al (2006)
In its nature LARP is a dramatic activity. Theatre: You are touched statically, you are only an observer. LARP: Immersion into the game - participant accepts the setting of the game as a reality for the time of the game; lives through the situation his/her character experiences and feels the same feelings as the character, which makes the game more real.
Bleed: "the player inherits experiences, feelings and sometimes hangups from a character." (Wieslander, 2012). The border between the player and the character starts to be unrecogniseable as the experience of the player influences his/her characters acts of vice versa.
Perceived as a leisure time activity
Not usually focused on use of particular skills, more it emphasizes experiencing the situation and acting according to the role.
Aim of the game is usually identified retrospectively through the feedback process and sharing the experience with other participants.
Level of improvisation is very high because participants often enact characters from which their own life experience is distant and they have to deal with situations which they probably do not know from their everyday life.
Necessity of empathy
Simulations and LARPs, due to their complexity, are more demanding (preparation, introduction to learners, final feedback) than role play excercises.
Offer a very practical tool to visualise the complexity of real life processes and experiences and therefore they should be employed in teaching.
Part of experiential education: Theory: In learning it is the process that is important and that every time we experience something we actually re-learn and modify the experience we gained earlier and it involves an interaction between the learner and the environment.
Use the tools of experiential education - such as different ways of feedback
History of LARP
Describes a phenomenon which appeared int he 1980s in the UK and spread quite fast all over the world.
Modern LARP for leisure and entertainment stems from two origins:
Re-enactment groups in the UK and US have been around for a long time, focusing on the detailed study and re-enactment of historical events or time periods.
The development of table-top role-playing games during the 1970s.
In the early 1980s some players, influenced by improvised theatre, started to perform their adventures with their physical bodies in a real surrounding, thereby inventing the current form of LARPs (Soderberg et al, 2009)
In the beginning of the 1980s an idea to transform these kinds of narrative games into outdoor activities was formed.
Most were influenced by fantastic worlds from literature such as LOTR, and included the combat aspect of the game.
Seven basic factors of LARP "should explain what the players want from a LARP and what potential LARP has" Morten Gade (2001)
Adrenaline: Mostly represented by combat experience but also through emotions
Fun: The basis
Intrigue: The basic conflict and goals each character needs to fulfil during the game.
Relationships: Enables the interaction between players
Personality: Enables each player experience the game from a point of view of a totally different person
Can be used to point out different, more or less serious, issues such as xenophobia, disapproval of people of different origin, religion or opinion.
Reconstruct a historical event
Media: Helps LARP carry out a certain message: Sociological, political, economic
Art: What is created by artists in moments of inspiration.
Works strongly with imagination and improvisation
Make it approachable for students
Costumes and props are important to create atmosphere and help immersion - theatrical activity linked to drama.
Freeform, Chamber and Outdoor (outside of school not outdoor necessarily) LARPS: Chamber LARPs are better suited to schools due to the lack of space.
Usually designed for a smaller number of students (about 5-20).
Time is usually limited
Dramatic conflict is at the centre of the game
Artistotles unity of time, place and plot (eg if the game is four hours long it depicts four hours in the lives of the characters
Ericsson (2003) states: "The skill to enter into a state of suspension of disbelief seems to be an ability we all possess, but are also able to develop over time. I have the pleasure to know many people highly skilled at entering into story-worlds at the drop of a hat, but most of us require help to leave our everday mindset. Games designed for this purpose are one of the most effective ways of achieving this shift in perception. Most LARP players I have discussed the subject with agree that consistency between perceived sensory reality (location, props etc) and diefesis (the game world and backstroy) is a powerful tool to make the game engaging and it is often considered aesthetically pleasing in it's own right"
Edu-LARPS
“There are many reasons why larp can and should be used for educational purposes. Larp is an adventure from which you can learn – a chance to understand another era. While preparing for a larp, most subjects can be integrated, everything from home economics to geography and maths. This way we can help students see practical uses of these subjects. Larp can also help the students to make up their minds concerning moral and political issues... Playing out another personality helps people learn more about themselves and their limits... Larp is also brilliant way of teaching them teamwork – both in the preparations and during the event.” (Bryhn, Movold, Raaum, 2001)
Cross subject teaching: Hyltoft (2008) also supports the idea of cross-subject teaching enabled through
larp. “When the teacher is not afraid to waste time covering another teacher’s subject, s/he can cover whatever relevant learning matter expands naturally from the activities of the day in the secure knowledge that another teacher will later cover what may have been lost due to time restrictions. The process covers complex learning matters very effectively pertaining to time and effort, since the subjects are taken up when they feel relevant to the students and within a contextual framework that often makes them easier to remember."
Involves teachers, learners and their parents
Positive attitude to LARP is vital. Need to have enough information about the aims of LARP, predominantly when we want to organise a game which exceeds the frame of a school lesson and works more with emotional aspects and topics which could not be as psychologically safe.
We need to suppose that almost all the learners are novices in this kind of activity. It will take them more time to create interesting situations, get to the flow, start the enjoy the game and participate fully.
Need to modify or format the game or employ the mechanisms which can help us overcome these difficulties.
Can employ actors/volunteers to represent some of the characters.
Review: A structured discussion of the experience from the game and issues the teacher would like to emphasize.
Motivation of learners: Sanne Harder‟s statement that motivation is the biggest challenge of a teacher. It is partly because “flow of the game induces the pupil to strive for learning” as it is claimed in the introduction of Østerskov Efterskole on their webpage.
Flow: A state of absolute immersion into an activity, when concentration is effortless due to the fact that the person is enjoying the activity. When experiencing flow, the personal is naturally learning because his attention is paid only to the particular activity, and s/he is willing to go through it successfully and fulfil all the necessary tasks the activity includes.
Flow is what most of the alternative teaching methods work with - natural interest of children in learning. A natural state of mind for young children.
When they start school, most of these natural approaches to learning are almost forgotten because educational system does not have time for playing, even though game, when well designed, gives teacher a great tool to practice efficiently, and sometimes even to teach, almost any subject desired.
Employing larps and simulations in the classroom might be a mean of how to increase the motivation of the pupils through showing them that they are able to use skills and knowledge they have learnt at school, which would make learning more meaningful for them.
Experiencing the situation provides us the most efficient form of learning as well as an opportunity to reflect our experience more carefully and accurately.
Inseparable part of the activity is then a feedback which not only enables the participant to formulate the experience s/he gained but also helps the organizer (teacher, tutor) to draw the attention to deserved outputs of the activity.
Reflection: “Reflection is seen as a mean for transferring knowledge across contexts, thereby forming the basis for the creative application of knowledge onto new problems, and games clearly have a potential for meeting this purpose. It is therefore relevant to investigate what challenges such objectives places onto the designers of learning games, and how they can be overcame.“ (Henriksen, 2006)
Start with the message we want to transmit, not with the means of doing it.
Most important aspect of the process.
Defining aim of the LARP should help with finding the best topic suitable for fulfilling the aims.
Cognitive goals (domain of knowledge)
Affective goals (domain of attitudes, habits and social skills)
Psychomotor skills (manual and physical skills)
Should be appropriate to people and situations, progressive, explicit and controllable (for evaluation purposes)
Writing a LARP in 10 steps: (Gotthard, 2012)
1) Think about the main factor of a game (what will be interesting about it
2) Choose setting and atmosphere, ideally in the way they are in conflict
3) Choose aspects of the world that supports the topic and main factor
4) Choose the suitable location so that it supports the atmosphere of the simulated setting
5) Create several changes of framework and think about how to get them into the game
6) Create the structure, clarify the opening and finale
7) Create the main characters and bind them to the changes of the framework
8) Create supporting characters and connect them to the specifics of the world and to the main characters and sidekickers
9) Connect the characters with positive and negative relationships
10) Make the beta test and correct the mistakes
Social
Probably the least important to focus on in terms of indoor LARPs, when using outdoor it is much more important.
Koljonen ... make the players really clearly aware of what to expect.
Involved parties (students, teachers and parents) each have separate expectations and worries concerning the larp, and it is writer‟s responsibility to ensure they have a fair idea of what to expect, and that they are confident this is the right thing to do.” (Bryhn, Movold, Raaum, 2001)
The presenter should inform all the participants about the means “how to break the game in case of emergency.” Koljonen, 2012
Safe words stop the action, letting the players have a time out, regaining their compsure and perhaps ending the game.
Gives players the opportunity to step out of the game when it is too demanding to continue, and mainly for inexperienced players, it creates a feeling of safety.
Probably the most important aspect of safety to take into
account. Larp is an activity in which emotions and strong themes play an important role.
Situations and relationships that are described in the game may some of the players remind of what they have already experienced in their lives, similarly it can reveal some aspects of players‟ personalities they were not aware of before.
Koljonen (2012) claims, “fictional” experience is also “real” experience.
Use techniques to de-role and debrief - let the participant realise that the game has ended, take off their characters and discuss experiences they had.
Every person is an individuality – s/he perceives things differently, has differently set comfort zone and s/he can cope with stress differently.
Some players tend to play characters too similar to their real life and they project themselves into their character
It is necessary to separate reality from the fictional world.” (Malečková, 2010) Different
Often people act in roles which are significantly different from their real nature.
Some of the players have characters that are negatively perceived in the game. Koljonen (2012) reminds that it is important “not to judge the player on the actions of the character”.
Reviewing a LARP
Active and creative approaches to reviewing create good opportunities for
reflection, communication, learning and development because they can readily (Greenaway,2013) :
engage and develop a wide rand of learning style preferences
connect the worlds of thinking, talking and doing
produce holistic, dynamic and focused learning
access intuitive and tacit knowledge
enrich the experience of learning from experience
enable some testing of ideas within the learning process
increase the range of strategies for the effective transfer of learning
Advantages and Disadvantages of LARP in the classroom
Advantages
Disadvantages
Practical nature
Practice communicative language skills
Provide situations students might encounter in their real lives
Allow students to react and improvise in different situations
Motivation through practical applications of the practised skills
Class size
Lack of teacher time
Topic coverage throughout the year
The time spent on the design and preparation is not appropriate to the effect the activity has in the class
Passivity of learners and their unwillingness to participate in untraditional excercises
Noise and misbehaviour during these times
Difficulties when the teacher needs to calm them down
LARPs are often time demanding