This article describes a language simulation involving six distinct phases: an in-class quick response, a card game, individual research, a classroom debate, a debriefing session, and an argumentative essay. An analysis of student artifacts—quick-response writings and final essays, respectively, both addressing the definition of liberty in a liberty-granting society—indicates a considerable betterment of the quality of the evidence supporting the writer's stance and/or the clarity of expression of that stance. Based on those findings, the article argues that language simulation is beneficial to students, in that it enhances their skills as critical thinkers and writers.

This article approaches language learning simulations from the standpoint of Piaget’s philosophy, and it is meant to achieve two goals. The first goal is to point to some of the similarities existing between the principles underlying symbolic play and those underlying language learning simulations, and the second is to show that Piaget’s ideas are at the core of classroom language learning simulations. The latter goal is fulfilled by describing a simulation currently used in an English as a second language composition class at Oklahoma State University.

This article describes an educational card game the objective of which is to raise students' awareness of the need for clarity, structure, and organization in all everyday activities of humans. Although the game as such was played in freshman composition, therefore addressing the immediate needs of that particular class, the lesson learned through it can easily be generalized-and hence applied to everyday life.

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