Teaching English to the young
learners is not easy because English is not their mother tongue and it is a new
thing for them. The interest of students in learning English is needed as the
key to make them easier in mastering English itself. The teacher should have a
good and an interesting technique to introduce English for them, so that the
young learners will be interested and motivated to learn English.
There
are a lot of ways to introduce English to the young learners. One of them is by
using games. As we all know that children like play, so by using games as the
teaching method the students can be more interested to learn English. Games are
not only for fun but also for motivating students to master English fast and
easily. Learning by doing is a good way to make them easy in understanding
about English, because with doing fun activities by themselves, they will find
it easy to remember and easy to learn about the material which is taught by the
teacher.
During
this activity, our group has provided a few games such as “Memory and
Imagination”, “Imagination and Write”, “Listen and Write”, “Roll and Action”,
and “Guess and Check”. We try to include every aspect such as writing,
speaking, reading, and listening. Games are a good approach to teach the students
in different way rather than sit down and listen to the theory only. This will
makes the teaching and learning process become more interesting and fun. At the same time during the game, this will
teach the students the values of cooperation, healthy competition also boosts
their self-esteem.
Another
group’s activities have their own uniqueness and interesting. For example,
Edward’s group which conducting game on The Odd One. The group which have the
odd answer is the winner and will get the sweets which be staked by another
group. On another side, it may looks like gambling. So the teacher should
implement good value to the students to make them understand on the good view.
This
is supported by:
- Games add interest to what students might
not find very interesting. Sustaining interest can mean sustaining effort
(Thiagarajan, 1999; Wright,
Betteridge, & Buckby, 2005). After all, learning a language involves
long-term effort.
- Games provide a context for meaningful
communication. Even if the game involves discrete language items, such as
a spelling game, meaningful communication takes place as students seek to
understand how to play the game and as they communicate about the game:
before, during, and after the game (Wright, Betteridge, & Buckby,
2005).
- This meaningful communication provides the
basis for comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985), i.e., what students
understand as they listen and read, interaction to enhance
comprehensibility, e.g., asking for repetition or giving examples (Long,
1991), and comprehensible output, speaking and writing so that others can
understand (Swain, 1993).
- The emotions aroused when playing games add
variety to the sometimes dry, serious process of language instruction ((Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000) Ersoz,
2000; Lee, 1995).
- The variety and intensity that games offer
may lower anxiety (Richard-Amato, 1988 ) and encourage shyer learners to
take part (Uberman, 1998), especially when games are played in small
groups.
- Games can involve all the basic language
skills, i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and a number of
skills are often involved in the same game (Lee, 1995).
- Games are student-centered in that students
are active in playing the games, and games can often be organized such
that students have the leading roles, with teachers as facilitators.
- Many games can be played in small groups,
thereby providing a venue for students to develop their skills in working
with others, such as the skill of disagreeing politely and the skill of
asking for help (Jacobs & Kline Liu, 1996). Other advantages of games
played in groups include:
a.
The team aspect of many
games can encourage cooperation and build team spirit (Ersoz, 2000).
b.
Although many games
involve competition, this is not necessarily the case (Orlick, 2006).
c.
In most games, everyone
has a turn, encouraging everyone to take a turn, rather than letting others do
all the talking and other actions, and discouraging one or two people from
shutting out others.
- As many games can be played outside of
class, they provide a means for students to use the language outside of
class time (Ellis, 2005).
- Games can connect to a variety of
intelligences (Gardner, 1999), e.g.,
- Games played with others involve
interpersonal intelligence
- Games involving drawing connect with
visual/spatial intelligence
- Games often have a hands-on element, such
as cards, spinners, or pieces, which connect with bodily/kinesthetic
intelligence
Teaching is all about
acting. Whatever situation we face on the day, we should keep on with our
spirit to teach. Keep passion on teaching and for sure we will enjoying it too
and forget our problems (^-^)
