I created "CleverKey" close to a decade ago, and to date I still regard it as the most exciting and inspiring resource I've ever put together for helping students learn and use English.
The City of CleverKey is a series of materials and activities that allows learners to construct and then interact with(in) their very own mini-city. It begins with simple activities (and hence makes a good starter for lower levels) and builds across multiple layers to eventually facilitate highly task-based and collaborative action.
While I only ever got the chance to use it with primary/elementary age groups (one group of grade 2 students used and expanded on it over close to one year!), I see no reason why it wouldn't work (with some tinkering of course) with teenagers and even adult students.
There are hundreds of ways CleverKey can be used and extended - the only limitations are imagination and class time!
In any case, after close to 10 years as an English Raven members-only resource, I'm now giving away all these CleverKey materials and ideas here on the blog, so I hope someone somewhere finds this as much of a goldmine for their classes as I have over the years.
After you see some of the examples and application ideas below, feel free to skip down to the bottom of the post, where you will find direct download links for all of the basic materials.
I've already mentioned that the potential applications for this are virtually limitless, so I'll try to explain some of them according to three general layers.
LAYER 1: Building mini neighbourhoods
The CleverKey materials consist of 12 different city grid maps, each with its own accompanying set of cut-outs. Basically, a different grid is given to each student (or group of students, depending on your numbers), they cut out a variety of shops, houses and urban facilities or landmarks, and paste them on to their grids.
Like this:
Please note that the cut-outs are just suggestions, and teacher and learners should feel free to add any of their own to the options given. There is, for example, a large blank box provided with each set of cut-outs if students would like to design and draw a house of their own to live in!
Once your learners have their grids complete, you have a wonderful little resource for applying a variety of simple activities - for example:
- Have the students talk about their little neighbourhoods, describing what they can see, where things are located relative to other things, and what sorts of activities or items might be found in the various locations on their maps.
- Have the students compare their neighbourhoods with other students', noting similarities and differences (for example particular types of shops and houses, special locations, number and length of streets, etc.).
- Distribute new blank city grids so that students can team up and have one person describe their neighbourhood (without letting their partner see it) while the other attempts to use this information (and answers to follow-up questions) to sketch and label the blank version.
There are literally dozens of other simple activities that can be applied just using the separate grids as they are - use your imagination!
LAYER 2: Building an entire collaborative city
Once up to 12 of the (different) grids have been completed, they can be slotted together to form a whole mini-city!
Looks a bit like this when you put it all together:
This can be put together on a section of classroom wall or on a table. You will need a fair amount of space, as the overall grid is 3 X 4 with each section being a horizontal A4-size piece of paper. The grid pattern is as follows:
A1 B1 C1
A2 B2 C2
A3 B3 C3
A4 B4 C4
Now once you have CleverKey all put together like this, the potential applications become much richer and much more exciting! This is where TBL (Task-based Learning) can really come into its own.
At this point, what I usually do is introduce the learners to the overall City of CleverKey, let them know that they each have their own neighbourhood to look after, but also inform them that they have become special CleverKey Citizens with a variety of important tasks to complete as a team.
From here on in, the activities become rather like an extended role-playing game (though not everyone may want to get into this as deeply as I have with my students). As an incentive (and in line with the whole underlying idea of CleverKey in the first place), students have chances to earn a variety of special keys from the Mayor of CleverKey. Depending on the nature and difficulty of the task, they might earn copper, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, crystal, opal, sapphire, ruby or diamond keys - to name just some of the options.
Here are just a few of the things I've done with the combined CleverKey maps with my learners:
- Find the most convenient places on the city map for all of the students to get together for various purposes, along with directions on how to get to these places from each student's respective "neighbourhood."
- Organise birthday parties, complete with invitations, directions, etc., and give students the chance to do some shopping around CleverKey to find the perfect present for their classmate!
- Make series of basic improvements to the city, like choosing where to put traffic lights, children's crossings, public telephones, special signs, and things like that.
- Make more advanced additions to the city's infrastructure, like design an underground metro system with a limited number of lines spreading out under the city, along with designated stations, entrances, and even timetables. Similarly, the bus routes around the city can be negotiated, designed and presented by the students.
- Help Chief Booker (local head of police) catch a jewelry robber on the run, staying in their neighbourhoods and relaying directions to the policeman via mobile phones. As a timed activity, their ability to speak quickly and clearly can determine how far away the robber manages to get as Chief Booker pursues! (Similar activity can be done with fires and the CleverKey fire department, or even the hospital emergency services).
- Design and present advertisements (for print or radio or even television - CleverKey has its own broadcasting station, after all) for businesses located in their local neighbourhoods.
- Design and conduct simple surveys of their local neighbourhoods to find out what the locals feel needs improving in their areas, and perhaps follow up with semi-formal recommendations and presentations that result in council debates (with each student or group of students arguing on behalf of their own neighbourhood).
- Organise and implement a variety of local events, festivals, charity fundraisers, etc.
- Follow a series of clues to track down CleverKey's resident prankster-wizard Moonbeard, and stop him before he upsets more of the locals!
- Follow a series of clues to solve the mystery of The Haunted House, and somehow stop the resident ghost there (my version was a purple perfumy ghost named Powderpuff) from scaring the willies out of CleverKey's citizens.
- Thwart Mr. Fumealot (filthy rich owner of the Fumealot Factory) from polluting his neighbourhood and using low-down tactics to bribe and manipulate people out of their homes and businesses so that he can build more factories around town.
- Act as advisors (or even a jury!) to Judge Goodlaw as he tries a variety of cases involving CleverKey's citizens and businesses.
- Interview families from CleverKey who are interested in being host-families for students visiting from other countries (the learners' own, for example).
And that is really just the tip of an immense iceberg when it comes to really fun and interactive challenging experiences for the learners!
I mentioned a few specific characters above that I developed alongside places and roles in the city. I actually made little illustrated character cards for many local characters in CleverKey, but all I can now locate is the image below:
Boy oh boy have I had some fun playing these characters and interacting in role-playing situations with my students as part of an ongoing City of CleverKey game! And you know what? The students LOVE it!
LAYER 3: Helping the city grow in sustainable and environmentally-friendly ways
There are a variety of roads leading out of CleverKey, which can end up on highways, in forests, in mountains, in swamps, or even out in farmland or on the beach. The city maps can be added to in ways that reflect the interface between urban, rural and wilderness settings.
At this point, students can be encouraged to take on more challenging and potentially sensitive tasks, like finding the best places to add more housing and infrastucture, mapping out and creating regulations to protect certain wilderness areas, or even creating and developing a tourism bureau for the city and surrounding areas.
It may depend on learners' ages and overall proficiency, but as with layer 2 described above, the possibilities for this sort of thing are both inspiring and endless!
So there are three general layers I have explored with the City of CleverKey. Never have I found language learning and "language in action" more stimulating and effective than I did with CleverKey. Whether you use it really full-on as a whole approach to language learning, or just use it in small doses around other core curriculum content, you would be amazed just how well it can work.
If anything in what I've described above doesn't seem easy to apply or if you need help in understanding how it can be applied to maximise language learning, don't hesitate to leave a question for me in the comments section below!
Your free City of CleverKey Downloads:
Here are those downloads I promised at the start of the post. They've been set up here to open for you as PDF files in a separate browser.
Remember that the city grid is set up to link up with the following layout:
A1 B1 C1
A2 B2 C2
A3 B3 C3
A4 B4 C4
CleverKey City Map A1 CleverKey Cut-outs A1
CleverKey City Map A2 CleverKey Cut-outs A2
CleverKey City Map A3 CleverKey Cut-outs A3
CleverKey City Map A4 CleverKey Cut-outs A4
CleverKey City Maps B1-B4 (Single download)
CleverKey City Maps C1-C4 (Single download)
You have my permission of course to download and use these materials with your learners as much as you like. Please just remember not to go uploading them on your or other "materials farms" sites without checking it out with me first. :-)
Oh, and remember to tear off the things you don't like about the approach or materials and rebuild everything and anything in ways that are bigger, brighter, and better for you and your learners!
Hope you and your learners enjoy CleverKey!
:-)
