Language focus and involvement

This exercise will take around 20 - 30 minutes.

The important thing to look at when selecting a game is that the language is at a suitable level and which skills it practises.

Look at the list of games in the Language focus and involvement resource below and identify the language teaching focus of each game.

Language focus and involvement

Look at the list of games in the table below, all of which were introduced in the previous section. Download the table in the document below and complete it with the teaching focus, organisation, materials, and type of game.

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If you want all the children to be involved in a game, you will also need to consider some other factors.

Luck

Generally, young learners like games which have an element of luck because it can add to the excitement. Games which rely completely on skill have the habit of producing the same few winners all the time which therefore quickly reduces the level of involvement of the majority of players.

Competition and Co-operation

Some games involve competition in order to play and others require co-operation. Some involve both. Although every game has an element of competition, players may need to co-operate with each other to compete against the challenge that the game sets up. 'Find the Difference' is one such example.

Co-operation involves and encourages verbal negotiation. As we have already mentioned, many games are simply competitive and winning is the main goal. Competition can sometimes be made less stressful for the children if they work in teams.

"With young learners, it is important for winning to come everyone's way at some point in order to maintain involvement and enthusiasm. Using teams and groups also helps to reduce the individual pressures of competition."

Brumfit, C., Moon, J. and Tongue, R. (1996)
Teaching English to Children - from practice to principle.
England: Longman p5

Uncertainty

This is caused by the demands made on the children's memories, and is another characteristic important in some games. "I went to market and bought ..." is an example of where the players' memories will fail at some point: the excitement comes from the challenge of uncertainty!

These characteristics of luck, competition, co-operation, and uncertainty can help you change a coursebook-led language exercise into a game. For example, a simple question and answer activity between you and your young learners - "Where is the book?" "It's next to the bag/on the desk/behind the door" - can be made more dynamic by introducing memory - "Look at the things on the table. Now turn around ... Where is the book? Where is the bag?" Many variations and adaptations are possible.

Another example from your course book is a page that is introducing new vocabulary - usually this is supported by illustrations of the items. You could turn this into a memory game by bringing in real objects of the vocabulary items and show them to the children. Then, ask them to close their eyes and as they do so, remove one of the objects.

The children then open their eyes again and have to say all the objects they can see, as well as the one that has been removed. You continue doing this until all the objects have been removed and the first child to remember all of them is the winner!

Including the elements above in the games you use in the classroom will ensure that all the children are involved.

Do you want to add anything to the table you have completed?

If not, open the Answer key resource and compare your answers.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 922