[Matrix Game] Mitrovica Matrix Exercise

[Neal Durando]

In the context of one of my military English classes for my consultancy, www.defenselinguistics.org, I recently began conducting an Engle Matrix Game, using the situation in Mitrovica, 2000 as a background. My students are staff officers of a divisional command with an intermediate to advanced grasp of English. I have been thinking about using an MG for some time now, but was a bit concerned about getting the concept across. Language exercises, after all, require very clear instructions especially when you are trying to hold a discussion.

I prepared the scenario this summer, knowing that a large percentage of my students have deployed to Kosovo at some time and will probably do so again in the near future. I also wanted to conduct an MG as a proof-of-concept for other, more ambitious reasons. I was heartened to see that MGs have already been conducted within similar commands within the British Army and also to learn that they are not so different from the wargaming step of the doctrinal "Military Decision Making Process," or MDMP (no lie!).

Unfortunately, on the day I chose to do the exercise, most of my students were stuck in a real operational briefing. In attendance were a communications major and two civilians who also work for us. Only the major had deployed to the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. Nobody knew much about the recent history of Kosovo. I decided to persevere because these are chatty students and I knew they would play as soon as they understood the concept. You should know as well that this is the first time I've run this kind of game. What follows are the actual notes we took during play--in the future, I will have students actually write out their turns and dictate them to other students who will enter them into the class computer, as this is a valid listening and speaking exercise.

Oddly, the civilians unhesitatingly chose the Serb and Albanian community roles. The major begrudgingly took the KFOR role and I played the CNN role. We were using an alternate version of Chris Engle's scale wherein arguments are rated on how well they build on previous ones. Each player had five coins to spend on making an argument or a counterargument. I explained the rules in English and conducted the game in English.

Here we go:

Initial Situation

Two days ago, a fifteen year-old Albanian boy was shot and killed by a sniper while playing on the banks of the Ibar river. Yesterday, a bus carrying Serb civilians was attacked with RPGs. Both communities claim that nobody can ensure their security and seem to be arming themselves. Albanians from other communities are reported to have already moved into the AO. KFOR troops, largely French and American units, along with Greek and Dutch elements, are on high alert. For the moment they control the main crossing point over the Ibar River.

Turn One
<Results: Serbians, fail; CNN, fail (KFOR counterargument also fails as it depneds on a successful CNN roll

Turn Two
<Results:<Turn Three
<
Results: Albanian, success; Serb, success; CNN, success   

Turn Four
Situation

[MatrixGamer]

Thanks for posting this Neal. Sounds like a good game - for language training purposes - since it got people talking about topics far off military tactics. I'm doing a play test now on the MatrixGame2 yahoo group to test a creative writing Matrix Game. Romeo and Juliet is a retelling of Shakespeare's classic story which aims at getting incoming college freshmen comfortable with making things up. People are so timid that way.

I want to give credit to Universalis on using coins in games. I'd considered doing that before encountering Uni but definitely followed that lead based on their example. The two games play quite differently but the coins work to time the game and make people feel okay about taking charge. They've "bought the right" to make something up... so it's not cheating.

I hope other educators see this post and try this out. Unlike a lot of games Matrix Games can be played in fragmented chunks and still be useful to teaching. This makes them fit into most class room time frames more easily.

Chris Engle

[Neal Durando]

Romeo and Juliet is a retelling of Shakespeare's classic story which aims at getting incoming college freshmen comfortable with making things up. People are so timid that way.

The dynamic of my course changes according to so many factors. In this case, there were no commanding officers present. Usually it means that students will look for ways to subvert the exercise or game. This gets almost unmanageable when I teach my sergeant's course. Anyway, it was very interesting to watch the interest level of one of the civilian students, normally rather timid, rise.[/quote]

I want to give credit to Universalis on using coins in games. I'd considered doing that before encountering Uni but definitely followed that lead based on their example. The two games play quite differently but the coins work to time the game and make people feel okay about taking charge. They've "bought the right" to make something up... so it's not cheating.

I haven't quite given up hope of someday running a version of Uni in a class but, conceptually speaking, it requires more patience to understand. I'm happy with the above results, even though we sort of thrashed about, because I now have four of a group of about twenty who understand the exercise and won't freak out when we do it again, thus reducing the amount of time I need to explain the game. My hope is to infect the culture of the place where I work with this sort of thinking. Shouldn't  be hard. The military planning process includes similar discussion activities and my language classes feature situational role playing.

I hope other educators see this post and try this out. Unlike a lot of games Matrix Games can be played in fragmented chunks and still be useful to teaching. This makes them fit into most class room time frames more easily.

I can't believe I waited so long. I normally consider a class a success if roughly a third of it consists of students talking in a semistructured or free discussion. In this case, we did a short pronunciation lesson and talked for an hour and a half. Also, unfinished games give me another language task to assign. Someone has to brief newcomers, after all.