The role of games in teaching children

Among numerous sources of children’s interest in the language learning process, games seem to be very important. Obviously, there are a lot of other sources, such as pictures and stories. Pictures serve as a visual stimulus, while games use both visual and aural channels and activate language production and, sometimes, physical movement.

Young learners love to play, and they participate in a game with more enthusiasm and willingness than in any other classroom task. Yet, games are sometimes perceived as entertaining activities, playing which children are not really learning. There are teachers who fail to realise the importance of games, considering them not a wealth of various techniques and an opportunity for real communication but an uncontrolled and noisy waste of time. However, children in general learn better when they are active. Thus, when learning is channelled into an enjoyable game, they are very often willing to invest considerable time and eff ort in playing it. Moreover, in view of diverse learning styles and preferences the students display, benefi ts from games seem to cater for everyone as children fi nd playing activities much richer language studying work than doing other kinds of practice. If games are properly designed, they may become an excellent and essential part of a children’s learning programme.

The more variety we can introduce into teaching, the more likely we are to meet the needs of all the diff erent learners. What is more, as children need to be motivated, exciting and relevant classroom exercises appear to be necessity if real understanding and acquisition is to take place. For games are activities with rules, a goal to achieve, and an element of fun; they seem to be challenging and interesting enough to keep the young students occupied and eager to complete the task. The majority of activities, which are found in resourceful materials for teachers, are based on the belief that the games children enjoy and are interested in playing outside the classroom can be adapted and exploited for use in the English language classes. Furthermore, as they use English for real purposes, they make the children play and learn at the same time. Moreover, games help to create a context in which children’s attention is focused on the completion of a task without realising that language items are being practised. As a result, language learning takes place in a context that children can directly relate to. However, it is always necessary to keep in mind the interests and needs of the learners. Games can provide a valuable learning experience in which the children practise and revise language only if they are carefully chosen, according to students’ styles of learning.

On the other hand, it is noteworthy that games like any other activity or tool can be overused when exploited too much so that the motivating element disappears rapidly.

Creating, selecting, and adapting activities for children language learning

Since children’s concentration and attention spans are short, variety is a must. This means variety of activity, variety of pace, variety of organisation. As already mentioned, children have an amazing ability to absorb language through play and other activities which they fi nd enjoyable. That is why games seem to be a challenging and exciting tool to make the young learners motivated and satisfi ed with making progress in acquiring a language.

Creating activities for children language learning

There are many reasons why creating activities for young children’s language learning is very important. First of all, it is extremely valuable because it allows for meeting pupils’ individual needs. Complete dependence on the textbook is not suitable for all students as they are of diff erent levels and have diff erent interests and diverse learning styles. Furthermore, the textbook being designed for a general audience may not fully match the students’ specifi c requirements. However, creating materials for learning can be very time consuming and often needs resources, like photocopying facilities. Moreover, the most common barriers can also be the cost involved in realizing some conceptions, lack of handbooks from which to get ideas, lack of skills to design some activities. A good solution to overcome some of the diffi culties mentioned above seems to be to involve pupils in preparing activities. They are full of ideas and enthusiasm. They can do some illustrations, they can prepare short stories and dialogues or riddles, and they can also make rhymes, chants, or short poems. It gives them a real reason for using language; and gradually, they can create activities for each other.

Selecting activities for children language learning

Before choosing an activity for use with a class, it is necessary to consider some criteria which should be helpful in making decisions whether to use the particular activity, to reject it or to adapt it.

First of all, it is essential to provide a clear and meaningful purpose for using language which capitalizes on young learners’ desire to communicate, for example, activities which involve a game, puzzling something out, or getting missing information from another person. All these make sense and are meaningful to young learners.

Next important criterion is to challenge the learners and make them think so that they are more engaged and so process the language more deeply. There is sometimes a danger that activities are used because they work well or because learners enjoy them. What is important and should matter most is the language-learning value an activity has.

Another very signifi cant point is providing activities which are enjoyable and interesting and which make children want to continue doing them so they get more practice, for example, creating monsters, guessing, and games with the winner or prize. However, it is important that these all have a clear language-learning purpose so that children are practising and they are not done just to keep pupils amused.

Additionally, it is noteworthy to select activities which create a need or pressure for children to use English, for when the game is very exciting, pupils tend to use the mother tongue. Because of the natural urge to win, they may cheat and use their fi rst language. Therefore, the activity should be designed so that it would require children to use English at some stages, for example, by recording their answers or getting them to report back to the class in English. This increases exposure to and use of the language.

Finally, it is meaningful to provide activities which allow children to be creative with the language and give them opportunity to experiment with it. This will help the young learners to test out their hypotheses about the language and assist the development of their internal language system.

It is necessary to remember that no activity can fulfi l all the criteria simultaneously. Therefore, it is always vital to decide what the priorities are before choosing the activity.

Adapting activities for children language learning

The process of adapting activities, which are found in the textbooks, is a good way of beginning to create teacher’s own materials. There are many ways of adjusting the language or the task to suit the level of the pupils and teaching situation. For example, we can either simplify the language or the task or make them more diffi cult and complicated. Moreover, we can use teaching materials from the textbook or prepare our own. In addition, we can make the activity more interesting for the children giving them some space for their own creativity.

Apart from meeting students’ need, the process of adapting an activity is a helpful way of gaining fresh perspectives on our teaching. What is more, it also helps to stand back from our teaching and look at it in order to fi nd out what works and what does not. It is also benefi cial to get pupils’ opinion as a check on our own perceptions.

To sum up, the main argument for adapting the materials is not only to ensure a better fi t between our teaching and the needs of our students but also to stand back from the routine of our daily teaching and consider it from a diff erent perspective.

Exercises

The activities listed below have been prepared for the students of primary school at the age of 6-9.

Activity 1: “Memory”

Class description: 10 students at the age of 7-8 Level: elementary Materials: 5 sets, each consisting of 10 cards with pictures of clothes and 10 cards with names of clothes

Aims: to practise the vocabulary students learnt during the previous lesson * to practise asking questions “What have you got?” and answering them “I have got.....”

Procedure:

• Learners, in pairs, get a set of 20 elements.
• There are 10 elements with names of clothes on one side and they are coloured red on the other side.
• There are also 10 elements with pictures of clothes on one side and they are coloured blue on the other side.
• Learners have to match the right word with the right picture.
• The rules are the same as for playing MEMORY.
• At the end, the T asks: Jaś, what have you got?
• And, Jaś answers: I’ve got a pair of socks, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap.

Activity 2: “What’s in the box?”

Class description: 10 students at the age of 7-8 Level: elementary

Materials: big cards with pictures of clothes on them and 1 big box

Aims: to practise the vocabulary students learnt during the previous lesson * to practise asking questions “Is it a...” and answering them “Yes, it is/No, it isn’t”

Procedure:

• The Teacher shows cards with pictures of clothes on them and asks: “Is it a shirt?”etc., and students answer: “Yes, it is/No, it isn’t”
• The Teacher chooses 1 student to come up to the front, take one card without showing it to the others and put it into the box.
• The rest of the group asks questions: “Is it a...?”, and the chosen student answers: “Yes, it is/No, it isn’t.”
• The fi rst person to guess what’s in the box comes to the front, chooses the next item, and puts it into the box.

Activity 3: “What colour is it?”

Class description: 10 students at the age of 7-8 Level: elementary Materials: big cards with pictures of diff erent colours and 1 big box

Aims: * to teach names of colours * to practise asking questions “Is it ...” and answering them “Yes, it is/No, it isn’t”

Procedure:

• The Teacher shows cards with pictures of colours on them and asks: “Is it green?”etc., and students answer: “Yes, it is/No, it isn’t”
• The Teacher chooses 1 student to come up to the front, take one card without showing it to the others and put it into the box.
• The rest of the group asks questions: “Is it a...?”, and the chosen student answers: “Yes, it is/No, it isn’t.”
• The fi rst person to guess what’s in the box comes to the front, chooses the next item, and puts it into the box.

Activity 4: “Clothes”

Class description: 10 students at the age of 6-7 Level: beginners Materials: big cards with pictures of clothes and pieces of paper with names of clothes

Aims: * to practise the vocabulary students learnt during the previous lesson * to practise asking questions “Who’s got a blue shirt/yellow trousers?” and answering them “I have got it/them”

Procedure:

• Students form two teams
• The Teacher shows a picture of an item of clothing
• Team’s members take turns in running to the blackboard where the pieces of paper with names of clothes are pinned and takes the article which was shown by the teacher
• At the end the T asks: Who’s got a yellow dress?
• And Jaś answers: I’ve got it.