TEFL COURSES - MODERN GREEK - ENGLISH - BUSINESS ENGLISH & GREEK - TRANSLATION STUDIES - TRANSLATIONS
The CELT Athens Online TEFL
Teachers' Resources
|
TEFL COURSES - MODERN GREEK - ENGLISH - BUSINESS ENGLISH & GREEK - TRANSLATION STUDIES - TRANSLATIONS
|
|
Games in the Young Learners' Classroom - their Educational Value for Cognitive & Linguistic Development
by Marisa Constantinides, Director of CELT Athens
In this
article I shall be looking at the kinds of games children engage themselves in
from a different viewpoint, not the one of a foreign language teacher but that
of an educator. The analysis included here may help us understand the
educational objectives of using games in the language classroom and equip us
with a better battery of arguments
when
R.F.Dearden (1967) who states that 'play is a non-serious and self-contained activity which we engage in just for the satisfaction involved in it' seems to justify the view that games indicate a non-serious attitude on the part of the teacher or school. Games have no 'face validity' as a learning activity , while other activities such as reading aloud, have greater validity as learning activities for parents and children alike. Very often when parents ask their child what s/he did in the English class on a particular day, the child will typically answer "Nothing, we were just playing games". Parents are not pleased with such responses and often express this to the teacher or director of studies or may even withdraw their child from such a frivolous environment and place it in the hands of someone who does 'serious stuff in class'.
The fact that children are not aware at all of being engaged in useful language work does not seem to hold much water with them; research evidence that for language acquisition to happen, you need to be in a situation with NO anxiety, and games are ideally suited for this purpose is information unavailable not only to parents but to quite a few teachers as well.
Which activities are games? R.F.Dearden's (1967) definition suggests that any activity that takes the mind of the learners away from language as a focus, any activity which gives them enjoyment and satisfaction simply through participating in it can be called a game. Given this description, many activities in the language classroom which generate laughter, enjoyment and fun can fall under the general heading of play. The question is, should they be banned and where does exactly play stop being play and become active learning?
Are games important or not? The importance of play for children is a fact that no educator can dispute. Most parents do not dispute this either, but they somehow tend to forget this fact when it comes to language learning, or rather, they tend to think of play as a spare time activity, outside school hours, at home or in the playground. Learning, it seems, is a serious business, and should be done through serious activities such as reciting texts, enumerating rules, doing written exercises, reading aloud, writing reams of dictation, answering teacher questions on texts, in fact, doing all the things that are not natural to children, i.e. go against the way they process and acquire any language, starting with their own. This acquisition process occurs mainly through observation, association, trial, error and reinforcement in play or gamelike activities where children pretend, act out parts from fairy tales or favourite TV series or film characters. They play with toys, make drawings and like to play with sand, water and household or other objects. Through play, children learn about the world, about the names of things, their properties and uses, space, time, size and weight, they learn to relate to people, be members of a team, and by extension, about relationships in the adult world.
Categories of Games children play at home or in the playground Let us now have a look at some of the games children play at home or in the playground. The classification presented overleaf comes from S.Tyler (1984). According to this classification, the games or gamelike activities children engage themselves in help them develop different abilities each, with obvious overlaps in some cases.
1 CONCEPTUAL GAMES These are games which develop one or more cognitive abilities in the child. These include the ability to categorise, identify similarities or differences of use, property, weight (singly or in combination), understand and express the notion of time. Such games include Odd-Man-Out, 2 VISUAL PERCEPTUAL TASKS These are games which help the child develop abilities similar to the above (perceiving similarities or differences) but mainly through the visual channel. They also help the child understand space, size, relative location, and colour. Picture Lotto, Kirn's game and Jigsaw Puzzles are typical examples in this category, 3 AUDITORY PERCEPTUAL TASKS These are games or gamelike activities which concentrate on developing abilities similar to the above but mainly through the accoustic channel and help the child develop auditory perception skills. Musical Chairs, Simon Says or 7 went to market and I bought a ...... ' are good examples. 4 FINE MOTOR TASKS Any type of activity which involves children in developing motor skills, coordinating movement, such as tracing a route through a maze, or cutting around a design, filling it in with colour are typical examples. 5 ARTISTIC ACTIVITIES Any activity which aims to develop the child's awareness of the world of the arts. Drawing, painting, making collages are good examples 6 MATERIAL PLAY Any play which involves children in manipulating materials such as clay, sand, water, plasticine, in which the children mould or change the shape of it. Making plasticine animals or making sand castles on the beach or in the sand pit belong to this category. 7 PHYSICAL PLAY Includes, running, wrestling, rolling around the floor, playing hide-and-seek and helps children become aware of their body, its potential and its limitations. 8 REPRESENTATIONAL OBJECT PLAY This type of play involves the use of small objects symbolising the real world, such as toy cars, zoo animals, dolls. Through these, the child can interact and learn more about the world and its workings. 9 FANTASY PLAY Any kind of play in which the child steps out of this world and enters the world of make believe, e.g. playing house or playing teacher. These games help the child consolidate knowledge & awareness of patterns of behaviour of the adult world, and the interactive skills that go with them, rehearsing as it were for a time when s/he will have to perform similar roles as an adult Categories from S.Tyler, 1984
Comments The discerning TEFL practitioner will have already spotted a number of parallels and similarities with language games used in the foreign language classroom. Some, like Simon Says (1} or Odd-Man-Out (2), are exactly the same, but may be used for a different reason, e.g. for listening skills development (1), or as a vocabulary revision/consolidation activity (2). The listing includes, of course, all kinds of play including physical play. A further classification may throw additional light to the aims of each type of game or gamelike activity. Moving down the list on the previous column, we proceed down or along a scale distinguishing learning games from being spontaneously playful games. Both kinds are valuable for a healthy and balanced child.
The next section takes you, the reader, into the foreign language classroom. The games briefly outlined here are listed without much attention (for a brief moment only!) to their language aims.
Games in the Foreign Language Classroom Let us now have a look at a number of well-known gamelike activities used in the foreign language classroom in order to attempt to see how they fit into one or more of Tyler's categories.
Consider the following activities (followed by the briefest of descriptions).
a. DESCRIBE & DRAW Player A describes a picture to Player B who listens & draws the picture. b. FIND DIFFERENCES or SIMILARITIES Players A & B have a different picture each. Without looking at each other's picture, they exchange descriptions trying to spot as many differences or similarities as they can within a time limit. c. HAPPY FAMILIES Groups of four players are dealt out four cards each and by asking randomely, try to collect the four members of a family to win the game. d. ROLE PLAYS Students enact a part which may be based on a conversation in their book, a situation outlined on a role card, a picture showing people in a situation, a series of pictures, a video sequence, or simply, some instructions given orally by the teacher. e. PUPPET THEATRE Similar to a roleplay, but here children handle a puppet each and enact a short sketch. f. FIND THE ORDER Groups of pupils are given the pictures making up a story. Each pupil has a picture. By describing their pictures to each other, they try to work out the sequence and tell the story to other groups. g. BOARD GAMES The pupils play a board game such as Snakes & Ladders, or one made especially for language practice, e.g. the Gift Game, in which pupils must justify why they would give a particular gift to one of the people assigned to them in order to move along the board. h. HIDE YOUR WORDS Groups of pupils are each given a set of cards with words or pictures and improvise a skit or story in which these words are used. When they present their story or skit, opposing teams must guess which words they 'are hiding'. i. MAKING BOARD GAMES Groups of pupils are given a board outline (or ideas for a board outline) and create their own board game which they colour in, make command cards for, tokens to move around the board and, depending on their level, write or record a set of instructions for other players.
j.
PICTIONARY
k.
RUNNING or WALL DICTATION
l.
CIRCLE GAMES
m. MINGLING GAMES Their partner may be someone with the other half of a picture which must be described, or half a sentence, or the right building for a job, or the right home for an animal.
THINKING TASK: Consider each game and decide which types of play according to the categories in Fig. 1 it fits. Check upside down answer box at end of article.
Final Thoughts Most of the FL games mentioned will already be familiar to the majority of our readers. A further classification (see fig2 below) will perhaps give you more food for thought. For example, roleplaying activities seem to fall under the most extreme kind of playfulness (!!) and yet, they generate a lot of language production. Physical play, though necessary, may need to be amended but some movement seems to be necessary (remember VAK1)
Notes 1-Visual, Auditory & Kinaesthetic 2- Relating to knowledge 3- Relating to play just for the sake of fun
Bibliography Dearden, R.F., 1967, The Concept of Play, in Peters, R.S. (Ed), "The Concept of Education', Routlege & Kegan Paul Tyler, S., 1984, Carrying out Assessment with Young Children, in Fontana, D.(Ed) The Education of the Young Child, (2nd edition) Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Tyler,S,1991, Play in Relation to the National Curriculum, in Hall, N. & Abbot, L, 1991, Play in the Primary Classroom, Hodder & Stoughton
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Marisa Constantinides. Dip.RSA, M.A.App Ling, is the Director of CELT Athens, Course Supervisor for all courses at CELT including Cambridge/RSA Diplomas and Certificates DELTA & CELTA - Certificates in TEFL & TEYL (Teaching Young Learners) as well as Diplomas in Translation.. Marisa teaches on all the courses offered at the centre as well as on off-site courses for which she is responsible. She first worked as a teacher of English at the Minos Androulakis and S.Magirou Schools and then for the Hellenic American Union for four years. After that, she worked as a full time teacher trainer for the Pagoulatou-Vlachou Schools and then as a free lance trainer for a variety of publishers, institutions and organizations including PALSO and EUROPALSO. Since 1993, she has been teaching and training full time for CELT Athens. Hobbies include writing songs and painting watercolours
Answers to thinking task a= 1, 2, 3 & 4 b=1, 2 & 3 c=2 & 3 d= 8 & 9 e= 7, 8 & 9 f=1, 2 & 3 g=1,2 & 3 j=2 k=3 & 6 l=1 & 3 m=1, 2, 3 & 6
|
|
TEFL COURSES - MODERN GREEK - ENGLISH - BUSINESS ENGLISH & GREEK - TRANSLATION STUDIES - TRANSLATIONS
Send mail to
info@celt.edu.gr with
questions or comments about this web site.
|
