Филологические науки
1. Методика преподавания языка и литературы
Нурекешова Гульназ Рахметбековна
к.ф.н., и.о.ассоциированного профессора
Ашимова Акбота Махмудкызы
Гуманитарно-педагогический факультет, студент группы Ая-11-1
Кызылординский государственный университет им. Коркыт Ата,
Кызылорда, Казахстан
The main features of teaching grammar
through games during foreign language lessons
In recent years
language researchers and practitioners have shifted their focus from developing
individual linguistic skills to the use of language to achieve the speaker's
objectives. This new area of focus, known as communicative competence, leads
language teachers to seek task-oriented activities that engage their
schoolchildren in creative language use. Games, which are task-based and have a
purpose beyond the production of correct speech, serve as excellent
communicative activities. On the surface, the aim of all language games is for
pupils to "use the language"; however, during game play learners also
use the target language to persuade and negotiate their way to desired results.
This process involves the productive and receptive skills simultaneously.
The more variety we can introduce into teaching, the
more likely we are to meet the needs of all the different learners. What is
more, as children need to be motivated, exciting and relevant classroom
exercises appear to be necessity if real understanding and acquisition is to
take place. For games are activities with rules, a goal to achieve, and an
element of fun; they seem to be challenging and interesting enough to keep the
young students occupied and eager to complete the task. The majority of
activities, which are found in resourceful materials for teachers, are based on
the belief that the games children enjoy and are interested in playing outside
the classroom can be adapted and exploited for use in the English language
classes. Furthermore, as they use English for real purposes, they make the
children play and learn at the same time. Moreover, games help to create a
context in which children’s attention is focused on the completion of a task
without realizing that language items are being practiced. As a result,
language learning takes place in a context that children can directly relate
to. However, it is always necessary to keep in mind the interests and needs of
the learners. Games can provide a valuable learning experience in which the
children practice and revise language only if they are carefully chosen,
according to students’ styles of learning.
Teachers, researchers and
psychologists alike have analyzed the use of games in classrooms in order to
find successful techniques to retain information. Games add variation to a
lesson and increase motivation by providing a plausible incentive to use the
target language. The game context makes the foreign language immediately useful
to the children. It brings the target language to life. Through playing games,
students can learn English the way children learn their mother tongue without
being aware they are studying; thus without stress, they can learn a lot. This
holds true for more than just children, even adults need this comfort and in
some ways may require more, as age in some cases they tend to put up more
barriers than some adolescents. Games appropriate for student profiles, give
students of all ages an immediate usage for any of the previously studied
material. They have to apply what they have learned understand it and play a
game. As a teacher your position is to merely help and direct if needed. It
also allows the teacher to create contexts in which the situations are useful
and meaningful, allows the learner to better understand the material relax and
learn from their peers.
On the other hand, it is noteworthy that games like
any other activity or tool can be overused when exploited too much so that the
motivating element disappears rapidly.
There
are many reasons why creating activities for young children’s language learning
is very important. First of all, it is extremely valuable because it allows for
meeting pupils’ individual needs. Complete dependence on the textbook is not
suitable for all students as they are of different levels and have different
interests and diverse learning styles. Furthermore, the textbook being designed
for a general audience may not fully match the students’ specific requirements.
Games are highly motivating because
they are amusing and interesting. They can be used to give practice in all
language skills and be used to practice many types of communication. It is
difficult to imagine not being motivated when you are amused and interested. A
lack of motivation or inspiration would be expected if one were annoyed or
indifferent. Perhaps there are times when the use of a game would not assist
the learning material when the students would rather learn in a more formal
approach. However putting that smile on their face at some point of a lesson
with a game is getting them to be excited and get up and move a bit in the
class. That has to be a pretty effective way to drill in what was covered in
the lesson. The most instructive language learning games are those
that emphasize specific structures. They do not only practice the basic pattern
but also do so in a pleasant, easy way that allows the students to forget they
are drilling grammar and concentrate on having fun.
Most
learners somehow accept that the sounds of a foreign language are going to be
different from those of their mother tongue. What is more difficult to accept
is that the grammar of the new language is also spectacularly different from
the way the mother tongue works. At a subconscious, semiconscious and conscious
level it is very hard to want to switch to “to be” if it is “have” in Italian.
Teaching grammar
has always been one of the controversial issues in language teaching, including
English. There have always been many arguments about the best way of teaching
grammar. Different methods and strategies have permanently waxed and waned in
popularity. Richards and Schmidt (2002) defined grammar as a description of the
structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units such as words and
phrases are combined to produce sentences in a language. It usually takes into
account the meanings and functions these sentences have in the overall system
of the language. A number of methodologies have emerged with regard to teaching
grammar, one of which was the audiolingual method replete with usually
monotonous and mechanical drills.
Modern
language teaching requires a lot of work to make a lesson interesting for
modern pupils who are on familiar terms with computers, Internet and electronic
entertainment of any kind. Sympathetic relations must exist not only among
pupils but between pupils and a teacher. It’s of special importance for junior
pupils because very often they consider their teachers to be the subject
itself, i.e. interesting and attractive or terrible and disgusting, necessary
to know or useless and thus better to avoid.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
1. Horwitz E.K., Horwitz, M.B., and Cope, J.A. 1986.
Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal 70 (2)
2. Lee Su Kim. Creative games for the language. Class
Forum Vol. 33 No 1, January - March 1995
3. Lee, W. R. 1979. Language teaching games and
contests. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4. The role of word games in second language
acquisition: Second language pedagogy, motivation and ludic tasks. By: Ojeda,
Fernando Artaro. PhD Dissertation, University of Florida, 2004.
5. Using games in an EFL class for children. By:
YinYong Mei and Jang YuJing, Daejin university ElT Research paper, 2000.