Educational games and language leaarning

Educational games and language learning

Educational games play a significant role in reinforcing and reviewing specific structures, grammatical patterns, and vocabulary items as well as promoting communicative competence in the target language. However, games presented in the English foreign language (EFL) textbooks currently used at the primary and secondary level focus mainly on accuracy and neglect fluency. Moreover, some teachers carry misapprehensions about the use of games, one of which is that they are time-consuming activities, which carry no educational value. In fact, games can provide EFL students with meaningful and useful language in real contexts. Among several strategies used to improve students’ proficiency such as visual aids, computer assisted language learning, drama, role-play, and so on, “games are another useful strategy to promote students’ language proficiency” (Richard Amato,1996). This article attempts to provide a clear understanding of the role and use of educational games within modern foreign language learning, while including the why and how these games can be implemented.

Jill Hadfield (1990) defines educational games as “games with rules, a goal and an element of fun”. Games can be termed as communication activities during which players become socially as well as intellectually involved and they need to communicate in order to compete or co-operate, to organise or argue.Games are not only used for mere fun, but more importantly, for the useful practice and review of language lessons, thus leading toward the goal of improving learners’ communicative competence. Zouganeli (in Andrews et al, 2004) comments on the important role of games by providing Sharpe’s (2001) reasons for including them in modern foreign language learning. These reasons are that games:

☺are enjoyable and promote learning

☺create helpful frameworks for further learning

☺create situations of real language use

☺engage the whole attention of the learners

☺facilitate necessary repetition of language

☺develop interactive competence, confidence and fluency

Teachers should base games on the skills, attributes, natural capacities to grasp meaning, instincts for play, fun, interaction and talk that students bring to the classroom. However, Cameron (2001) argues that there are possible dangers if students have problems making sense of some of the activities in which they are asked to participate in their language lessons and sometimes they give an illusion of understanding. For this reason, teachers need to check that meaning is accessible, in other words to make sure that students understand the language being used and the purpose of activities being carried out. Teachers need to support students in the construction of understanding, in their quest for meaning and coherence in what they hear around them and in the contributions they make when communicating with their classmates. In the course of a game, the learners’ social and affective needs can also be met in the classroom. Games can help students try to make sense of new situations and events. In addition, students’ affective filter can be lowered when they are feeling receptive and confident regarding the input they are receiving. As a result, students try to communicate more efficiently as they do not worry about making mistakes. Thus, they can improve their fluency and natural speaking styles.

Gardner (1983) states strongly against the traditional view of intelligence as having a unitary character and presents the multiple intelligence theory by identifying seven different overlapping ways the human brain can operate : linguistic, logical-mathematical, visual/spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, inter-personal and intra-personal. It is important that language teachers should find ways of teaching and developing all types of mental, physical and social skills in the early stages of learning for a developing child. In the language classroom, linguistic and logical intelligences are only consistently tested and valued while the rest are neglected or partly exploited. All the above intelligences can be developed through carefully chosen activities presented in a stimulating and motivating way. Teachers should plan task-based activities such as games in the young learners’ classroom in order to create, on a small scale, opportunities for involvement and natural use and acquisition of the foreign language. Educational games encourage interaction and negotiation between students and the teacher, and lead to a mutual understanding in achieving the goals.

Educational games center around the learners’ ability a) to develop certain skills and strategies b)to function co-operatively in language situations, in spite of students’ linguistic limitations. The basic principle is that learners should not only construct grammatically correct structures but also develop the competence to use the language to carry out various real-world tasks. Fluency and variety of language should be the aim, rather than a structured system of grammatical patterns.

Krashen and Terrell (1988) suggest that there are two discrete psycholinguistic processes operating in second-language development: conscious learning and subconscious acquisition. Learning takes place via a conscious process of study and attention to form and rule, and acts as editor or “monitor” making minor changes and polishing what the acquired system has produced. Subconscious acquisition, on the other hand, occurs in much the same way that children pick up the first language-with no conscious attention to language form. For Krashen, the focus of language teaching should be on creating conditions for “acquisition” which is by far a more important process than “learning” for the purpose of the development of language skills.

Affective factors (confidence, motivation, etc), comprehensible input and output as well as the communicative need promote language acquisition as they give learners the opportunity of practicing the target language. In the classroom, the learners’ emotional state (tense, angry, anxious, unmotivated) may prevent them from acquiring language from the available input. A high affective filter causes the learner to be relatively inefficient learner while a low affective filter, which may result from feelings of relaxation, well-being or success, maximises learning efficiency.

Games can break down inhibitions and help to release tension, decrease the pressure to perform, as well as build confidence in the ability to speak English and therefore assist communication and fluency. Donn Byrne (1997) divides games into two categories, which clearly have their place in language learning:

a) those which focus on accuracy and can be used to provide new contexts for rapid and enjoyable repetition in many key language areas such as tenses or sets of lexical items on which learners need a massive amount of practice, both for initial and periodic revision.

b) those which concentrate on fluency and can be used to provide learners with opportunities to use language rather than simply practice it.

Games are enjoyable wherever they are played. Halliwell (1994) claims that games are useful partly because of their fun element which creates the urge to communicate and makes pupils find some way of expressing themselves and partly because games can create unpredictability and encourage pupils not only to repeat set phrases but also to construct language actively for themselves. Games provide children with an occasion for real language and let the subconscious mind work on the processing of language while the conscious mind is focused on the “task” of playing the game.

To play a game is to enjoy competing against other players, against time or against the challenge of the game, and to think consciously about the language involved in doing so. Games also give students the opportunities to negotiate meaning and develop their language skills in the foreign language classroom by setting out situations where children urgently need to communicate in order to have a turn at playing, to point out the rules and so on. Involving students in games which they are very eager to play may be a good way of creating a powerful need to use the language. As games usually contain an element of fun in them, they can absorb the interest of the learners. It seems clear that using them in the classroom will produce a low affective filter in participants and bring out the capacity of the learners to use the language effectively. Games can usually be “stirrers” as they may stimulate and overexcite a class or “settlers” as they may calm students down while they focus on the language as well. It depends on the teachers to plan lessons which neither stay stuck in dullness nor get out of hand in excitement.

What to consider when planning educational games for your classroom

Before deciding which game to use and which game will be most appropriate and most successful in a particular class, teachers must consider a range of factors:

the size of the class and the arrangement of the desks

the age of the children

the language level of the children

the language structures and functions which are being taught at the time

the children’s interests in and out of the class

the equipment, materials and time available for preparation

the noise factor

the time available for a game

It is difficult to find a game that meets all of the teachers’ requirements. Some games must be adapted in order to fit students’ language level. The most important factor of all, however, is that games should be used when they can give students both fun and educational purpose. Otherwise, they will be a waste of time.

Classroom management problems when playing games

Demonstrate how the game is played and explain the rules

Try not to interrupt the game in order to correct mistakes in language use

If the students appear reluctant to play, they can either help the teacher or watch how the game is played, until they feel ready to participate.

Make sure the students who are “out” have something to do.

When students feel bored, restless or tired, teachers should stop the game.

Overcoming difficulties in playing games

There are several difficulties which arise when students are engaged in pair-work and group-work, such as:

overuse of the mother-tongue by students in monolingual groups. Allow the students to use mother tongue if needed and the language teacher can provide the student with the form of a word or sentence in both languages and ask them to repeat it in the target language.

less participation from some students either because they are shy or because they fail to understand the purpose of the task and they do not know how to contribute. In this case, another learner can be assigned the role of the group leader “whose job is to make sure everyone else gets equal chances to talk”.

students’ limited use of strategic competence. Learners should be given practice before being asked to engage with group work. Their attention should be drawn to ways of: paraphrasing, getting round an unknown word, negotiating turns to speak, initiating a discourse, responding to questions, interrupting politely and asking for clarification in order to fully understand what is being said. (Antonakaki R. 2002)

The contribution of games in language learning:

Games play a pedagogical role and offer learning opportunities such as exploration, reflection, creativity, discovery, assessment and reference to prior knowledge for the formation of new knowledge.

Games: offer students the possibility of repetition, allow students to learn through trial and error without the fear of making a mistake, thus creating a positive self-image and confidence in themselves, bridge the gap between the students’ interior world and exterior reality, provide students with a linguistic tool with which they can exercise their possibilities of communication and interdependence so much with themselves as with others, give students the opportunity to work at their own pace, thus develop self-confidence which comes out of the feeling of control which they have over the activity, offer teachers the opportunity to observe and obtain useful information for the organizational abilities and the emotional condition.

Games can be considered as a useful strategy to promote students’ language proficiency as they set students at the centre of the teaching and learning scene.

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