Teaching Games
The majority of teachers know how long it takes their students to learn
new words, to remember difficult grammar patterns, to be able to communicate the way
Russian standards of education demand. But no matter how much we talk about this, nothing
changes greatly except our attitude towards the problem. In many editions and in other
different types of mass media you can find different kinds of classroom activities for
various age groups, but not all of us seem to know or understand how these activities
should be introduced in our traditional system of education.
Nowadays we live with a constant feeling of new changes, and as
teachers have to help their students to be able to survive in such strong informative
stream influencing every sphere of our life. We should teach them the most useful things
for life situations for them to be able to communicate everywhere and on different
matters.
All the above mentioned encouraged me to spend several years working on
the development of a system – let’s call it regular game usage method – which is to
work in the real conditions of the classroom where there is the usual lack of time and
money.
In this situation it is interesting to know that if you introduce games
into your everyday lessons, your own point of view on the teaching process will certainly
change (if you don’t forget about some important rules while playing the game).
Having held several practical experiments in the game usage method at
the series of lessons in the 8–10th forms and analyzing their success with groups where
there were previously no games at all but only standard lessons, we have come to some
conclusions. The first group showed a deeper understanding of the discussed topics, a
better knowledge of new vocabulary and grammar structures as well as better listening and
speaking skills.
Many of you will say it takes too much time. My answer is, if you know
how to work with the game, if you have prepared the necessary materials for it, if your
students know the rules, it will go. However, you won’t succeed until you believe in
games, in their teaching ability. To make it work and to the point you must know the
psychological features of the exact age of your students. Maybe you know (whatever you do,
knowing “too much” never hurts), here it is all the same. If you have a plan, never
demand your students follow it very strictly, it is no good. The game can set its own pace
and possibilities; it is alive and that’s why it’s interesting to teach using them,
not really knowing what can happen.
Many teachers will argue saying we can’t only play, we have to work.
I will say try to “work” through games and that’s my answer. Sometimes you can
introduce more abstract meanings of words, more definitions and difficult structures of
language usage. At your lessons students will find themselves facing real life situations
where they can behave as real men or women, parents and children, employees and employers,
doctors and patients. You will see your students expressing their own points of view,
their dreams and sorrows, hopes and believes. Your dear children will reach higher
possibilities in English and everyday life together with you experiencing not only another
variant of teaching methods but a new step in a whole journey.
Teaching games is a serious process, demanding hard work, patience and
faith, but once you believe and succeed, you will never step back.
Variants of Games
To obtain knowledge in different spheres of the language you must show
your students how big the world is, how different people are, how the style of the
language influences our behaviour, etc. So, I want to hold experiment in different spheres
of language activities: speaking, writing, grammar, usage reading, listening and
pronunciation. As far as I am concerned, teenagers appeal to me most of all as the most
special, independent and self-consciencious people on the one hand, and sometimes rather
shy and common on the other.
The first game is a variant to be used at the beginning of the academic
year. You can use it as a usual game and as a combination of tasks to fill your time
during several lessons. It has several aims to be achieved at every lesson.
Speaking
I believe many of you start the first lesson after summer holidays by
asking your students about their plans and realized dreams over the summer. When our
students become older this technique is repeated. I suppose that’s not bad, our life is
also not so changeable, but let’s try to do something different.
For example, we all know the common answer to the question: “What did you enjoy doing on
holidays?” – “Nothing.”
This statement is very important for us. Now read attentively.
Task 1: You come into the class, all the children are happy to
see you or seem to look so. You congratulate them with starting another school year and,
as usual, want to ask about their holidays. But stop. Start your introduction by saying:
Many people your age enjoy doing nothing, can you describe to me this condition using as
many adjectives as possible during 1 minute.
Task 2: Tell the students: Now recollect some moments from your
memory when you thought you were thinking of nothing, sitting somewhere and trying to
relax. If it is difficult to recollect, try to do it now. Sit quietly and try not to
think, keep a pen or a pencil ready to count the thoughts which come to your mind in spite
your efforts not to think.
It is not a simple trick, it’s a psychological and sociological instrument to analyze
what we think about ourselves, our future, our family, our future children, our planet and
its future or we only think about problems of each day and are worried only about the
quantity of money and the next day’s exam.
In conclusion, I want to say that using these two game tasks you can cover different
topics, teach a lot of new words. This time I only tried to cover the idea of these games,
we will feel satisfied if you caught the idea of our method: try to teach thinking, not
learning; try to teach understanding, not simply reading.
By Yelizaveta Ilyinskaya,
Teacher in Moscow Gaidar Center for children activities
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