Game technology as a tool of developing interest in foreign language learning

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2. Game technology as a tool of developing interest in foreign language learning

2. Classification of games

 

Many experienced textbook and methodology manuals writers have argued that games are not just time-filling activities but have a great educational value. W. R. Lee holds that most language games make learners use the language instead of thinking about learning the correct forms. He also says that games should be treated as central not peripheral to the foreign language teaching programme. A similar opinion is expressed by Richard-Amato, who believes games to be fun but warns against overlooking their pedagogical value, particularly in foreign language teaching. There are many advantages of using games. "Games can lower anxiety, thus making the acquisition of input more likely" (Richard-Amato). They are highly motivating and entertaining, and they can give shy students more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings (Hansen). They also enable learners to acquire new experiences within a foreign language which are not always possible during a typical lesson. Furthermore, to quote Richard-Amato, they, "add diversion to the regular classroom activities," break the ice, " [but also] they are used to introduce new ideas". In the easy, relaxed atmosphere which is created by using games, students remember things faster and better (Wierus and Wierus). Further support comes from Zdybiewska, who believes games to be a good way of practicing language, for they provide a model of what learners will use the language for in real life in the future.

Games encourage, entertain, teach, and promote fluency. If not for any of these reasons, they should be used just because they help students see beauty in a foreign language and not just problems.

Choosing appropriate games.

There are many factors to consider while discussing games, one of which is appropriacy. Teachers should be very careful about choosing games if they want to make them profitable for the learning process. If games are to bring desired results, they must correspond to either the student's level, or age, or to the material that is to be introduced or practiced. Not all games are appropriate for all students irrespective of their age. Different age groups require various topics, materials, and modes of games. For example, children benefit most from games which require moving around, imitating a model, competing between groups and the like. Furthermore, structural games that practice or reinforce a certain grammatical aspect of language have to relate to students' abilities and prior knowledge. Games become difficult when the task or the topic is unsuitable or outside the student's experience.

Another factor influencing the choice of a game is its length and the time necessary for its completion. Many games have a time limit, but according to Siek-Piskozub, the teacher can either allocate more or less time depending on the students' level, the number of people in a group, or the knowledge of the rules of a game etc.

When to use games.

Games are often used as short warm-up activities or when there is some time left at the end of a lesson. Yet, as Lee observes, a game "should not be regarded as a marginal activity filling in odd moments when the teacher and class have nothing better to do". Games ought to be at the heart of teaching foreign languages. Rixon suggests that games be used at all stages of the lesson, provided that they are suitable and carefully chosen. At different stages of the lesson, the teacher's aims connected with a game may vary:

1. Presentation. Provide a good model making its meaning clear;

2. Controlled practice. Elicit good imitation of new language and appropriate responses;

3. communicative practice. Give students a chance to use the language.

Games also lend themselves well to revision exercises helping learners recall material in a pleasant, entertaining way. All authors referred to in this article agree that even if games resulted only in noise and entertained students, they are still worth paying attention to and implementing in the classroom since they motivate learners, promote communicative competence, and generate fluency.

Role play as a method of teaching

Scholars suggest different steps and various successions in applying role play in teaching. Based on the empirical evidence, we suggest our step-by-step guide to making a successful role play.

Step 1 - A Situation for a Role Play

To begin with, choose a situation for a role play, keeping in mind students' needs and interests (Livingstone, 1983). Teachers should select role plays that will give the students an opportunity to practice what they have learned. At the same time, we need a role play that interests the students. One way to make sure your role play is interesting is to let the students choose the situation themselves. They might either suggest themes that intrigue them or select a topic from a list of given situations. To find a situation for a role play, write down situations you encounter in your own life, or read a book or watch a movie, because their scenes can provide many different role play situations. You might make up an effective role play based on cultural differences.

Step 2 - Role Play Design

After choosing a context for a role play, the next step is to come up with ideas on how this situation may develop. Students' level of language proficiency should be taken into consideration (Livingstone, 1983). If you feel that your role play requires more profound linguistic competence than the students possess, it would probably be better to simplify it or to leave it until appropriate. On low intermediate and more advanced levels, role plays with problems or conflicts in them work very well because they motivate the characters to talk [8]. To build in these problems let the standard script go wrong. This will generate tension and make the role play more interesting. For example, in a role play situation at the market the participants have conflicting role information. One or two students have their lists of things to buy while another two or three students are salespeople who don't have anything the first group needs, but can offer slightly or absolutely different things.

Step 3 - Linguistic Preparation

Once you have selected a suitable role play, predict the language needed for it. At the beginning level, the language needed is almost completely predictable. The higher the level of students the more difficult it is to prefigure accurately what language students will need, but some prediction is possible anyway [9]. It is recommended to introduce any new vocabulary before the role play [10].

At the beginning level, you might want to elicit the development of the role play scenario from your students and then enrich it. For example, the situation of the role play is returning an item of clothing back to the store. The teacher asks questions, such as, 'In this situation what will you say to the salesperson? ', 'What will the salesperson say? ' and writes what the students dictate on the right side of the board. When this is done, on the left side of the board the instructor writes down useful expressions, asking the students, 'Can the customer say it in another way? ', 'What else can the salesperson say? ' This way of introducing new vocabulary makes the students more confident acting out a role play.

Step 4 - Factual Preparation

This step implies providing the students with concrete information and clear role descriptions so that they could play their roles with confidence. For example, in the situation at a railway station, the person giving the information should have relevant information: the times and destination of the trains, prices of tickets, etc. In a more advanced class and in a more elaborate situation include on a cue card a fictitious name, status, age, personality, and fictitious interests and desires.

Describe each role in a manner that will let the students identify with the characters. Use the second person 'you' rather than the third person 'he' or 'she. ' If your role presents a problem, just state the problem without giving any solutions.

At the beginning level cue cards might contain detailed instructions (Byrne, 1983). For example,

Step 5 - Assigning the Roles

Some instructors ask for volunteers to act out a role play in front of the class (Matwiejczuk, 1997), though it might be a good idea to plan in advance what roles to assign to which students. At the beginning level the teacher can take one of the roles and act it out as a model. Sometimes, the students have role play exercises for the home task. They learn useful words and expressions think about what they can say and then act out the role play in the next class.

There can be one or several role play groups. If the whole class represents one role play group, it is necessary to keep some minor roles which can be taken away if there are less people in class than expected [11]. If the teacher runs out of roles, he/she can assign one role to two students, in which one speaks secret thoughts of the other (Shaw, Corsini, Blake & Mouton, 1980). With several roles play groups, when deciding on their composition, both the abilities and the personalities of the students should be taken into consideration. For example, a group consisting only of the shyest students will not be a success. Very often, optimum interaction can be reached by letting the students work in one group with their friends (Horner & McGinley, 1990).

Whether taking any part in the role play or not, the role of the teacher is to be as unobtrusive as possible (Livingstone, 1983). He or she is listening for students' errors making notes. Mistakes noted during the role play will provide the teacher with feedback for further practice and revision. It is recommended that the instructor avoids intervening in a role play with error corrections not to discourage the students.

Step 6 - Follow-up

Once the role play is finished, spend some time on debriefing. This does not mean pointing out and correcting mistakes. After the role play, the students are satisfied with themselves; they feel that they have used their knowledge of the language for something concrete and useful. This feeling of satisfaction will disappear if every mistake is analyzed. It might also make the students less confident and less willing to do the other role plays (Livingstone, 1983).

Follow-up means asking every student's opinion about the role play and welcoming their comments (Milroy, 1982; Horner & McGinley, 1990). The aim is to discuss what has happened in the role play and what they have learned. In addition to group discussion, an evaluation questionnaire can be used.

The methods submitted above are only less part of the whole list of various effective methods of teaching a foreign language. The teacher should remember that each of the submitted methods works more effectively if they are combined and applied together at every lesson. It is impossible to allocate the best and most effective of them, every teacher himself chooses for himself what method approaches for each concrete case better.

 

2.2 Disclosure of the concept of the game

 

At school the special place occupied by such forms of employment that provide an active part in the lesson, each pupil, increase the authority of knowledge and individual responsibility for the results of the school pupils work. These problems can be successfully addressed through technology learning game forms. Game has great significance in the life of a child, has the same significance as an adult activity, work, service. The game only seems outwardly carefree and easy. In fact, it imperiously demands that playing gave her the maximum of its energy, intelligence, persistence, self-sufficiency. Forms of learning can be used at all levels of learning, from the reproductive activity by transforming the main goal - creative-search activities. Creative-search activity is more effective if it is preceded by reproducing and transforming activity in which students learn the techniques of teaching.

From the opening game concepts can identify a number of general provisions:

1. The game is an independent type of developmental activities for children of different ages.

• . Children play is the freest form of their activity, which is realized, we study the world, offers a wide scope for personal creativity, activity, self-knowledge, self-expression.
• . The game - the first stage of the child's preschool, primary school of his conduct, and equitable regulatory activities of primary school children, teenagers, young adults, changing their goals as they grow older students.
• . The game is the practice of development. Children play because they evolve and develop so that they are playing.
• . The game - the freedom of self-discovery, self-development based on the subconscious mind and creativity.
• . The game - the main sphere of communication between children, it solved the problem of interpersonal relations, human relations experience is gained.

There are several groups of games, developing intelligence, cognitive activity of the child

Group I - subject game, as the manipulation of toys and objects. Through toy - items - children learn the shape, color, size, material, animal world, a world of people, etc.

Group II - Game creative, role playing, in which the plot - a form of intellectual activity. Creative role playing games in training - not just entertainment or a way to welcome the organization of cognitive material. The game has great heuristic and persuasive potential, it throws up something that "seems one", and brings that to the teachings and life resists comparison and balancing. Scientific prediction, guessing the future can be attributed to "the ability to imagine a game of imagination as the integrity of the system, which from the point of view of science or common sense, systems are not. "

Group III is a didactic game, they require the student's ability to decipher, unravel, unravel, and most importantly - to know the subject. The more skillful didactic game is made, the most cleverly hidden didactic purpose. Operate the game of knowledge embedded in student learning unintentionally, unwittingly playing.

 

2.3 The classification of educational games in a foreign language learning

 

Despite the fact that a child's play has been written so many, the questions of the theory of it so complicated that a single classification of games still do not exist., for the number of participants in the game are divided into individual, pair and group. And the first target to communicate with the text, and the other to communicate with partners. The nature and form of the game produce substantive, moving with a verbal component, scene, or situational, games, competition, intellectual (tests, puzzles, crosswords, chaynovody, etc.), interaction (communication), complex, etc. By way of organization of the game There are computers, writing on message boards, etc. In terms of complexity of the actions distinguish simple and complex games, the duration of the - not long and lengthy. Games are helping to learn the various aspects of language (phonetics, vocabulary, etc.) are divided into phonetic, lexical, grammatical and stylistic., the educational game - is focused on the zone of proximal development of the game, combining teaching with the aim of appealing to the motive of the child., introducing the game into a lesson, it is important for the result of didactic teaching, but may not be the motivation for the work of children. The game has to change the style of the relationship between children and adults the teacher, who can not impose anything: a child can play only when he wants and when he is interested, and those who cause him sympathy. Teacher can not only be the organizer of the game - he has to play with your child, because children have great pleasure in playing with adults, and because game atmosphere collapses under the gaze of the observer.

The main purpose of phonetic games is staged (correction) pronunciation, practice in pronunciation of sounds in words, phrases, practicing intonation. They are used regularly, mostly at the initial stage of learning a foreign language (water-remedial course) as an illustration and exercises to practice the most difficult to pronounce sounds and intonations. As we move forward phonetic games are implemented at the level of words, sentences, Rhymes, tongue twisters, poems and songs. The experience gained in games of this type can be used by students in the classroom in the future in a foreign language.

Lexical games have focused students' attention solely on the lexical material and are designed to assist them in acquiring and expanding vocabulary, and to work to illustrate the use of words in communication situations. There are different types of vocabulary games

Battle Ships - A Vocabulary Game

Level: Easy to Medium

Preparation:

Divide the students in to groups of four or five. Then ask the student to make the name for their ships for example with the names of animals, cities, movie stars or let them find their own favorite names. The captain's duty is to memorize his ship's name, so he can reply if somebody call his ship's name. The shooter's duty is to memorize the names of the ships of 'their enemies', so he can shoot them by calling their ship's name.

Activity:

Arrange all the captains in a circle, the ships' crews must line up behind their captains. The shooter is the last crew member in line. Teacher must decide a lexical area of vocabulary, this vocabulary will be used to defend their ships from the attacks. Every students (except the shooters) must find their own words. The lexical area for example, "Four Legged Animals". Give the students 1-2 minutes to find as many possible words as they can and memorize them. Tthe game by calling a ship's name, for example the ship name is "THE CALIFORNIAN". The captain of THE CALIFORNIAN must reply with a word from the lexical area given, for example he says "TIGER" followed by his crews behind him one by one, "COW"; "SHEEP" until it is the shooter turns and he calls out the name of another ship and the captain of the ship called must reply and his crews must do the same thing. No word can be repeated. The captain is late to reply (more than 2 seconds) or his crew can not say the words or a word repeated or the shooter shoots the wrong ship (his own ship or the ship that has already been sunk) the ship is sunk, and the crew members can join the crew of another ship. Teacher can change the lexical area for the next round. The last round there will be two big groups battling to be the winner.

Grammar games are designed to provide students practical skills to apply knowledge of grammar, increase their mental activities to the use of grammatical structures in natural communication situations.

Tell Me Everything You Know

Here are the basics:

. Write a sentence on the board and set a time limit.

2. Students write down everything that they can about the grammar of the sentence.

3. When the time is up, students individually share their observations. If anyone else in the room has the same observation, they must cross if off of their list. If they are the only ones who have made that particular observation, they get a point.

4. Whoever has the most points wins.

Stylistic games aim to teach students to distinguish between formal and informal styles of communication, as well as the right to use each of them in different situations.

Verbal games teach the ability to use language resources in the process of committing an act of speech, and repelled from the specific situation in which speech acts are carried out.

Proper Noun Exercise Verbally, give as as many proper names of the nouns as you can think of for those listed below. Do this as quickly as you can!

Example:

boys = Douglas, Edward, John, Peter, Andrew, Alexander, Joshua, Caleb

 

girls	heroes	books	Books of the Bible	weekdays
holidays	apostles	nicknames	presidents	animal pet names
			Bible characters	amusement parks

 

Role-playing game. The different types of games holds a special place role-playing game you know, of great importance in the educational process is learning motivation. It helps to enhance the thinking is of interest to a particular kind of occupation, to perform a particular exercise strongest motivating factor is the training methods that satisfy the need for students to study material novelty and variety of the exercises. Using a variety of teaching techniques helps to perpetuate the memory of linguistic phenomena, creating a more stable visual and auditory images, maintaining interest and activity of students.

The lesson of foreign language is seen as a social phenomenon, where the classroom - a particular social environment in which teachers and students enter into definite social relations with each other, where the learning process - the interaction of all present.

The success in training is the result of collective use of all opportunities for learning. And students should make a significant contribution to this process. Ample opportunities to revamp the educational process is the use of role-playing games. Role play - methodological procedure relating to a group of active methods of teaching practical language skills playing is a contingent of actors playing real practical activity, creates conditions for real communication. The effectiveness of training is due primarily to an explosion of motivation, increased interest in the subject play motivates speech activity, as students find themselves in a situation where the need is updated to say anything, ask to find out to prove something to share with someone clearly convinced that the language can be used as a means of communication game will intensify the desire to contact the guys with each other and the teacher creates the conditions of equality in the speech partnership breaks the traditional barrier between teacher and student game allows a timid, diffident students to speak and thus to overcome the barrier of uncertainty. In the usual discussion students, leaders tend to seize the initiative, and the timid prefer to remain silent. In the role-play, each gets a role and must be an active partner in speech communication games, pupils master the elements of communication such as the ability to start a conversation, keep it, to suspend the interlocutor at the right moment to agree with his opinion or disprove it, specifically the ability to listen to the interlocutor, to ask clarifying questions, etc. Playing teaches to be sensitive to the social use of language. A good conversationalist is often not the one who enjoys the best structures, and those who can most clearly recognize (interpret) the situation in which there are partners, to consider the information that is already known (from the situation, experience) and choose the linguistic resources that will be most effective for communication all the training time devoted to role-play voice for the practice is not only talking but also listening to the most active, as it is to understand and remember the replica partner, correlate it with the situation, determine how relevant the situation and the problem of communication and properly respond to the cue have a positive effect on the formation of students' cognitive interests, contribute to the conscious development of a foreign language. They contribute to the development of qualities such as independence, initiative, foster a sense of collectivism. Students actively, enthusiastically working to help each other, listen carefully to their comrades, but the teacher manages the educational activity

Basic requirements for the role-playing games:

1. The game should stimulate motivation to exercise, to cause the student interest and desire to do the job well, it should be based on the situation adequately the real situation of communication.

. Role-playing game should be well prepared in terms of both content and form, clearly organized. It is important that the students were convinced of the need to perform well a certain role. Only under this condition, their speech is natural and convincing.

. Role-playing should be taken as a group.

. It certainly is conducted in a friendly, creative atmosphere, causes the pupils a sense of satisfaction and joy. The freer the student feels in a role play, the more initiative, he will be in communication. Over time, he will feel confident in their abilities, that he may fulfill different roles.

. The game is organized so that students can active verbal communication to maximize the use of piloted language material.

. The teacher will certainly believe in the role mothers play in their effectiveness. Only under this condition, it can achieve good results.