In spite of what the term might suggest, gamification is not fundamentally about fun. Gamifying a classroom activity can, as a side effect, make the activity fun, the point is to create a sense of purpose and urgency around activities which would otherwise be open-ended. For this blog post, I am going to present an Activity Module that I think is an excellent example of gamification.
This lesson, incorporating the popular Japanese animated series' "Sazae San", is a great way to teach family & relationships vocabulary as well as a variety of related structures.
Curriculum is not ultimately what makes the class. It is the intersection between the teacher and the student that makes the class. Placing curriculum first breaks that intersection.