How to Use Games in Primary English Teaching

How to Use

Games in Primary English Teaching

Abstract:

Accompanied with the carrying out of the new English Curriculum Standard there are a lot of new problems arising from the field of English teaching in the primary schools. This thesis holds the hypothesis is that game-teaching approach should be adopted in children’s English teaching, and also probes into the reliability and pros and cons of using games in the process. Teachers applied in all the stages of the language teaching. The games actually aroused these students’ interest. However, there are still some problems in the model for teaching games. While organizing the teaching games, teaching should develop students’ cooperative skills. Meanwhile, it is necessary for the language teachers to create new games with appropriate method.

Key words: teaching games, children, primary English teaching

Outline

I. Overview of the teaching games

A. Definition of the teaching games

B. Necessity of the teaching games

II. Organization

A. Types of games

B. Characteristics of games

C. Activities organizing in teaching process

III. Conclusion

As English becomes more and more accepted as an international language, interest in the English teaching to younger learners has been steadily growing in recent years. Accompanied with the carrying out of the new English Curriculum Standard by the Ministry of Education of Chinese government, there are a lot of new problems arising from the field of English teaching in the primary schools. This thesis holds the hypothesis that game-teaching approach should be adopted in children’s English teaching, and also probes into the reliability and pros and cons of using games in the teaching process.

Overview of the Teaching Game

Games are a different kind of play activity. They are highly structured and

include specific rules to be followed (Spodek Bernard and Saracho Olivia, 1994, p.132). Specially, teaching game is one of the kinds of the games. Byrne (1995) gave the definition to games as a form of play governed by rules. He suggested:“Games should be enjoyed and fun. They are not just a diversion, a break from routine activities, but a way of getting the learner to use the language in the course of the game.”(Byrne, 1995, p. 32).

From the above, we can safely drawn a conclusion that “game” in language teaching (teaching game) can be defined as an organized activity that usually has the following properties: A. a particular task or objective; B. a set of rules; C. competition between players; D. communication between players by spoken or written language.

There is a widely-held lay belief that younger second language learners generally do better than older learners. Children exercise a good deal of both cognitive and affective effort in order to internalize both native and second languages. Moreover, one of most essential thing that teachers teaching

children’s English should make all means to motivate their spirit and sustain their interest in learning English. Therefore, most of those teachers chose the method by using games in the teaching process, because games using is closely related to characteristics of children for their age and their features of psychology. However, just as we know, language learning is not easy work. In a word, games can help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest and they play an important role in language teaching:

It has been found that one appropriate strategy to encourage language acquisition is using language games. Children have a greater need to be motivated by the teacher or the material, and they are easier to be motivated.Many scholars agree that games in the language classroom have been considered a better way to arouse the interest of children, John Dewey claimed games were integral to schooling since they provided active and position learning experience. Games are also listed in the language skills for the learning stage of primary school in the New English Curriculum Standard. When using games in the classroom, it is beneficial for teachers to have a complete understanding of the definitions of games: a form of play concerning rules, competition, and an element of fun. Teachers should also consider the advantages of games: the ability to capture students’ attention; lower students’ stress; and give students the chance for real communication. (Campell Linda, Campell Bruce and Dickson dee, 1999).

For adults and children, difference between the age group in learning styles, abilities and motivation entail corresponding differences in selection of materials and methodology and in lesson plan. Children have a greater immediate need to be motivated by the teacher or the material in order to learn effectively. Teacher can raise children’s motivation and enthusiasm by selecting interesting activities. They are always curious about the interesting things. Games are one excellent means to maintain the curiosity in the English course. When the teachers ask the children to play games, they are prepared to enjoy. All this mean that it is easy to maintain a high degree of motivation and to make the English class into an enjoyable and stimulating experience for the children.

To successfully teach children English requires specific skills and intuitions that differ from those that a teacher would use for adult teaching. Brown (1994) suggested five categories help the teacher to give some practical approaches to teaching children as follows:

The first one is intellectual development. Since children (up to the age of about eleven) are still in an intellectual stage of what Piaget called “concrete operations,” we should remember their limitations. Rules, explanations, and other even slightly abstract talk about language must be approached with extreme caution. Play (game) is a way of manipulating the outside world so that it serves a vital function in the child’s developing intellect and remains.

The second one is attention span. One of the most salient differences between adults and children is attention span. Children have short attention spans. The short attention spans come up only when the teachers present stuff that to them is boring, useless, or too difficult. Since language lessons can at times be difficult for children, the teachers should try to make them interesting, lively, and fun.

The third one is sensory input. Children need to have all five sense stimulated. The activities should strive to go well beyond the visual and auditory modes that we usually feel are sufficient for a classroom. As it is mentioned above, games use both visual and aural channels to activate the language production.

The fourth one is affective factors. Children are often innovative in language forms but still have a great many inhibitions. They are extremely sensitive,

especially to peers: What do others think of me? What will so-and-so think when I speak in English? Children are in many ways much more fragile than adults. Their egos are still being shaped, and therefore the slightest nuances of communication can be negatively interpreted. Teachers need to help them to overcome such potential barriers to learning.

And the last one is authentic, meaningful language. Children are focus on what the new language can actually be used for right here and now. They are less willing to put up with language that doesn’t hold immediate rewards for them. The need for meaningfulness in language learning has been accepted for some years. If the children are amused, angered, challenged, intrigued or surprised, the content is clearly meaningful to them., therefore the meaning of the language they listen to, read, speak and write will be more vividly experienced and better

remembered. Games in language can meet the needsfor “meaningfulness”.

Organization

Games in language teaching can be divided into different categories. There are five types of language teaching games, consisting role-play, musical activity, intelligence games, sports games and drama performing, which met the need to develop students’ multi-intelligence.

In games for language learning, the authors (Wright Andrew, Betteridge David and Buchby Michael, 1984) grouped the games according to their general and spirit (different functions as: picture games, psychology games, word games, true

or false games, memory games, question and answer games, story games, guessing and speculating games and miscellaneous, which is easy for the teachers to handle.)

Games can be found to give practice in all the skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking), in all the stages of the teaching/learning sequences (presentation, repetition, recombination and free use of language) and for many types of communication (e.g. encouraging, criticizing, agreeing, explaining). Several characteristic of teaching games must be considered: First, a game is a closed activity. Games must have a beginning and an end. It must be easy for the players, or the teacher, to know who is about to reach the aim. Second, a game needs less supervision from the teacher. This must be understood as linguistic supervision. Sometimes the game is conducted by the teacher who acts as judge, scorer and/or referee. Third, it is easier for students to keep going. Compared with pair or group work, a game has a lucid element that other interaction patterns do not have. This makes the activity more attractive.

There are four types of games as cooperative games, competitive games, communication games and code-control games, which has been greatly adopted and will be stressed as following:

The first one is Cooperative Games. In this type of game, the main action is centered in trying to reach the aim in cooperation. Players or teams work together towards the common goal (Jill Hadfield, 1984). This type of game is excellent to encourage the shy students, since it requires the participation of all the members

of a team, group or pair. Some typical activities may include the completion of a drawing, putting things in order, grouping things, finding pairs or finding hidden things. Students are involved in the exchange of information to complete the task and in giving instructions. For example:

Title: Cards on the Table

Aim: To memorize the correct spelling of words in an enjoyable way.

Procedure: First, give the students one letter card each, and clear a space in the classroom and put a table in the middle. Then have the students stand in a circle round the table, 3 or 4 meters from it. Each student has one letter card each.Then the teacher calls out words he wants to revise, one at a time, and any student who holds a letter that is in that word must run forward and put the letter on the table.The last person who puts his letter down must spell the word and give its meaning. If unsuccessful, he/she is out of the game, and the teacher gives the correct answer. Students should take back a different letter from the table each

time, i.e. they should swap with someone else.

The second one is Competitive Games. In this kind of games, players or teams race to be the first to reach the goal. As the name indicates, in this type of game there is an overt competition between teams, or sometimes of an individual against the rest of the class (as in 20questions). The competition may also be of individuals against other individuals. The object of this type of game is finishing of reaching the end before the other competitors, making more points, surviving

elimination, or avoiding penalties. The rules may require the players to produce correct language as part of the game and force students to draw conclusions more quickly. For example:

Title: Slap it

Aim: To recognize words and listen for relevant information

Preparation: A set of 10-15 pictures of different kinds of food items for each team of 4 to 6 people.

Procedure: Put the items on a desk and the students sit around the desk. The teacher describes the food item. When a student has an answer, she/he slaps the card and says the word aloud. If the student is correct, he/she gets a team point. If the student is wrong, he/she is out of the game. Alternatively, in each group each student plays independently. If the student slaps the correct picture, he/she keeps the card as a point. The person or team with the most cards/points wins.

The third one is Communication GamesThe main objective in this type of the games is getting the message over to the other players and reacting appropriately to their messages. For example when giving instructions, the player must be clear about rules, and the player following them must do exactly what he is required to. The tasks are usually practical, like following instructions, drawing, persuading other players, etc. this means that players will concentrate on the task rather than on the language, besides, students can see the results of their use of language at

once, which will help to build students’ confidence.

The thesis shows another illustration to this point at follow:

Title: Have You Seen My Sheep

Aim: to encourage careful description and listening about dress

Procedure: A circle is formed with one player called IT outside the circle. He/She moves around the outside of the circle and taps someone on the shoulder asking, \"Have you seen my sheep (or dog, cat, goat...)?\" The Student responds: \"Yes I have seen it.\" IT asks, \"What's it wearing?\" or \"How is it dressed?\" The student must describe someone in the circle e.g. green shirt, brown shoes, long hair. On recognizing that he/she is being described, the student must run round the outside of the circle away from IT. If caught before getting back to his/her place,

he/she takes the place of IT.

The fourth one is Code-control Games. This type of game requires that students produce correct language: structures, spelling, pronunciation, etc. the production of correct language will make the players of the team win points. For example:

Title: Listen and Act

Aim: understand the meaning of some verbs

Procedure: after learning some verbs, such as: run, walk, sit, stand, and swim, and so on, teacher say one word of them fast. Then have students stand in front of the blackboard and show the correct actions. Then continue.

At the end of this part, one major problem must be mention about is that how can teachers adopt teaching games to sustain young learners’ interest in those teaching games. There lays a fact that those teaching games must changeable and variety. The teacher should find “new” games through different channels including newspaper, radios and television programs. It is a wise precaution to collect and file games for use whenever you happen to come across them. Nowadays we also can surf the net get more information including the new games. The games we discussed above refer to the games in classroom. After class we can encourage the children to use the games on the Internet if the condition permits. Thus, the language level is determined by the type of use, not just by the structures and vocabulary items.

Conclusion

This thesis aims to examine the assumptions about game-teaching approach for children English teaching in the light of some literature and research, and also probes into the reliability and pros and cons of using games in the process. One useful strategy to encourage language acquisition is using language games which are defined as a form of play concerning rules, competition, and an element of fun. Games have the ability to capture students’ attention; lower students’ stress; give students the chance for real communication. All this mean that it is easy to

maintain a high degree of motivation and to make the English class into an enjoyable and stimulating experience for the children. Games provide not only a learning experience but an enjoyable activity as well. Students, in the informal atmosphere of game playing, are less self-conscious and therefore more apt to experiment and freely participate in using the foreign language. Therefore, it may be challenging for teachers to try to add some games in class in order to develop students’ English proficiency of the target language.

References

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Cesar Klauer.（2001）.Teaching with the brain in mind. Association for Supervision& Curriculum Development.

Gardner, H. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st century. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Jill Hadfield, (1999). Elementary communication games .Oxford University Press.

Spodek, Bernard; Saracho, Olivia (1994). Foundations of early childhood

education.Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall Canada.

Wright Andrew, Betteridge David and Buchby Michael. (2001).Reframes of mind: Thetheory of multipleintelligences. New York, NY: Basic Books.

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Nowadays, some students who learn English as a foreign language may lose their interest in learning and show negative attitude towards English learning. In order to deal with this problem, teachers have to explore ways to arouse the learners’ interest in learning the language and make English teaching effective. Songs, according to many scholars, can be an efficient instrument in a foreign language teaching. In recent years, the value of English songs in motivating students to learn English is widely acknowledged by many Foreign Language teachers. In language classes, many Foreign Language teachers have adopted meaningful English songs in teaching. Songs may take up the whole class period instead of only being used as warming-up activities games and so on. English songs are seen as a unique teaching tool, vital in communicative language

teaching, providing language teachers with rich and varied resources. English songs can be used not only for purposeful language practice, but also for motivating students' interests and enhancing students' involvement in learning English. So EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers can try to use songs in their English classes.