Games in the ESL classroom

Using Games in the ESL classroom

We have all experienced the typical boring English classroom in which we were taught using only the audio-lingual and grammar translation methods, most of the time, students cannot understand almost anything. As a result, students would not be paying attention in class and not involved, disconnected from the lesson, looking bored.

Nevertheless, some of us have also had the experience of learning through games from time to time. The result is very different from traditional lessons. Students would be much more involved in the lesson, they would participate, and most importantly, they would be learning in a natural way for them. According to Piaget (1978), games are one of the most important functions during childhood, as it’s the way for their full development. Thus, these are useful tools for learning for young children, so why not applying this for everyone?

Why using games?

Bruner (1974), claims that games constitute an area in which actions and errors do not have consequences. Moreover, games are a source of intrinsic motivation. Games promote the learning skills in a non-intentional way.  Supporting this, Paul Meara (1995) states that games offer a meaningful context for communication and for the language skills development (listening, speaking, reading and writing), and also for the exchange of information among peers in small groups.

Here are some personal reasons for using games in the ESL classroom:

1. Games help students to focus on specific structures, grammar structures and vocabulary
2. Games are natural for children, they are fun
3. Games provide a context for meaningful communication
4. Games can be: reinforcement, review and enrichment activities
5. When games are played in small groups, it may help shyer students to participate
6. Games are inclusive activities, they can be adapted to different learning styles and different personalities
7.  
8. Games can involve and develop the four skills: writing, reading, listening and speaking
9. Games are student-centered, the teacher is a facilitator
10. Games are social activities which foster the development of social skills such as collaboration and respect to others
11. Games foster healthy competition, they provide contexts in which students can produce utterances in a non-stressful situation
12. Games provide feedback and extra information about the students to the teacher

Things we need to think about when choosing a game

Students want to play games just to have fun, but this is not our only goal. We want them to enjoy and have fun but, above all, we want them to learn. We need to reflect on this carefully if we want that our game suits well our students and our activity to be successful. Below are some ideas which teachers may consider when they choose a game:

1. Do I like the game? Do I think it is enjoyable? – If they feel that you do not enjoy the game, they will feel it and this is a bad start.
2. Is it appropriate for my students’ age?
3. Is it too difficult? Too easy? Will they be capable of understanding the game? Can it be adapted? – This is important so students do not get bored, If they cannot follow it or is too easy they will just drop it
4. Which is the target language in the game? – The teacher needs to think if they are already familiar with the target language or if it is new for them, or for some of them.
5. What is the goal? - This is very important for children, they need to know why they are doing this, they need to know that it is useful for something, that it has a purpose
6. Which skills are my students going to practice? – It can be language skills (listening, speaking, reading or writing), or also social skills
7. How is the interaction and participation? Will all the students have the chance to participate?
8. How are the groups going to be made? – It should be the teacher who made the groups, because the teacher knows better which are the strengths and weakness of his students and can match them better to make a good and collaborative team
9. Are there going to be roles in the group? Which ones?

How to use games

Traditionally, games have been used in the ESL class as warm-ups at the beginning of class, fill-ins when there is extra time near the end of class, or as an occasional spark into the curriculum to add variety. This is fine, but games can provide more than this. Games can be either for practicing specific target language or language skills or for more communicative language production. Likewise, games can also be used as a way to revise and recycle previous knowledge.

Additionally, the introduction to the game is important. The teacher has to give clear and simple instructions so students can easily understand the rules. Also, a demonstration of how the game is played could clarify the existent doubts.

Some games

• Sorting, ordering, or arranging games.
• Information gap games.
• Guessing games.
• Search games.
• Matching games
• Labeling games.
• Exchanging games
• Board games
• Role play games

Useful webpages

http://www.esl4kids.net/games.html

http://iteslj.org/c/games.html

http://www.esljunction.com/esl_games/

http://www.teachenglishinasia.net/tefl-tesl-games-and-activities-directory

http://classtools.net

http://www.quia.com/

http://www.funbrain.com/

I hope you found this information useful =) Thanks for reading!

References

- Talak-Kiryk, A. “Using Games In A Foreign Language Classroom” SIT Graduate Institute. 1 January 2010. Web 28 May 2014

- Yolageldil, G., Arda Arikan. “Effectiveness of Using Games in Teaching Grammar to Young Learners” Elementary Education Online, 10(1), 219-229, 2011. Web 28 May 2014

THE ART OF STORYTELLING

THE ART OF STORYTELLING

Storytelling is one of the oldest ways of teaching that exist. Long time ago people around the world would always tell tales as a way of passing their culture, their beliefs, traditions and history to future generation. Children share a remarkable variety of personal experiences, values and ways of understanding, (Paula Stoyle), and stories offer new experiences for children through words. Stories can take people to new places, to imagine unexplored places and incredible experiences. Stories contribute to student academic success and emotional well-being. According to the British Council, storytelling “is a unique way for students to develop an understanding, respect and appreciation for other cultures, and can promote a positive attitude to people from different lands, races and religions” (“Storytelling-benefits and tips”).

Some reasons for using stories in the ESL classroom

1. Motivating and fun. Stories are motivating, memorable, enjoyable and fun. Children are used to listen tales, we can take advantage of this, is a context that is familiar, and is also challenging. They can enjoy learning another language and another culture in a way that is enjoyable for them.
2. Exercise the imagination. Our pupils in the classroom are very imaginative, they develop imagination. One of the activities that they like the most is to write their own story and to show it.
3. Tool for linking fantasy and real world. This fantasy and this imagination is not something that has to be apart from reality, they can link fantasy with real life, and they can learn useful things. Kids have a lot of initiative and they identify the different characters that appear in the stories.
4. A shared social-experience. Kids can sit in a circle telling stories so they can identify the same feelings and share them, building their own social confidence. We develop social skills. Also, stories develop emotional intelligence: self-understanding, empathy, handling relationships with others. Stories allow children to play with ideas and feelings; to think about issues which are important and relevant to them
5. Enjoyable for children. They enjoy stories when they are repeated, it does not matter if we repeat it because they enjoy it over and over again. That can help us as teachers because children can acquire vocabulary and the language in an easy way.
6. To introduce or revise new vocabulary and sentence structures. Stories provide exposure to language. When we repeat that vocabulary we help to our pupils to spread their minds.
7. To develop listening and concentrating skills. In stories we always have illustrations, for children they do not just listen to the story but they also can see it, so they can anticipate what is going to happen next and make hypothesis.
8. To develop other subjects. Stories link language learning to other subjects in the curriculum e.g., science, history and other areas of learning and general knowledge.

How to choose a suitable story?

When choosing a story in our ESL classroom, we need to bear in mind different criteria so the story suits perfectly our students or public. Some of them can be:

1. Language level. Is it too difficult? Too easy? We need to be aware of that, otherwise our public may get bored! Also, in this matter we need to consider the language learning potential, so the story is meaningful to them and to their language knowledge development.
2. Visuals. Images are essential in storytelling; they make the story more understandable, catching and attractive. We need to think if the iamges are big enough so everyone can see them. Also, we need to consider if the pictures are attractive, if they help to understand the story and if they make an impact.
3. Content. Will it be interesting for them? Is it relevant, amusing, interesting or catching? Real or fantastic?
4. Children involvement. Children will have a deeper understanding and will enjoy more if they have several chances to make predictions, interact, repeat certain things…

10 tips to be a good story teller

1. Make sure you are familiar with the story you are going to use and practice!!!
2. Make story time into a pleasant ritual.
3. Tell or read the story clearly and quite slowly especially at first so they get involved
4. Make eye contact with the children and point to the pictures
5. Change voices for different characters and change intonation. That will make the story much funnier!!!
6. Mix the previous point with mime, gestures and facial expression
7. Listen to children’s comments, questions, and responses to the story in L1 or in English. Respond them in English and expand their contributions
8. Ask children questions to involve them in the story and encourage them to predict what happens next when appropriate.
9. Encourage them to tell the story with you!
10. Above all, show and share your own enjoyment of the story.

I hope you found this information useful. Here I leave a link which can help you for future storytelling situations!

Story telling in the classroom: http://www.storyarts.org/classroom/

References

Storyteller. “Storytelling for Children: Be Prepared For Changes”. storytellingforchildren.info. October 27th, 2011. Web May 20th, 2014.

<http://storytellingforchildren.info/>

Stoyle, P. “Storytelling - benefits and tips” British Council. July 8^th, 2003. Web May 20^th, 2014.

<http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/storytelling-benefits-tips>

How to motivate students to speak English

How can we motivate our students to speak English?

It is widely known that in the English classroom students usually use their native language most of the time instead of trying to communicate in the second language that they are learning.

First of all, I want to clarify that from my point of view it is fine to use the native language occasionally to clarify unknown and difficult concepts or unfamiliar vocabulary if other methods do not work. However, I think that using it all the time, it is just not acceptable in order to learn the foreign language.

The question is: why does that happen? Some students, not to say most students, prefer not to use the foreign language because they are afraid of making mistakes and failing to find the correct words to express themselves. They are afraid of being criticized or embarrassed in front of the whole classroom.

The best thing a teacher could do to encourage students to speak in a foreign language, or to speak at all, is to create a safe environment. Letting them know that a mistake or an error is not the end of the world. They need to know that nobody is perfect, everyone makes mistakes and it is okay. A safe environment provides students the opportunity to produce output and to recieve feedback out of their utterances. But how do we create a safe environment in which students feel comfortable enough to speak in English?

The first thing a teacher should do is to learn the students’ names as quickly as possible, as it is said in the EFL Press by David Martin. First of all to be able to control the class, but more importantly, because in that way students can appreciate that you care and you try to know who they are. For D. Martin, it is his first priority.

In the website teacherjoe.us we can find some tips that could help us do achieve that. Teacher Joe establishes five principles to encourage students to speak English and turn us into “Super Teachers”. The five principles mentioned in Joe’s blog are:

1.       Positive reinforcement. That is to prize the right attempts of our students, no matter how small their success. I believe this is essential, especially for little kids who need to be reassured every time. For sure, mistakes should be corrected, from my point of view, in the best way depending on the situation. But as I said, children have to see that making mistakes it is ok and that trying to speak and making successful attempts are rewarded.

2.       Clear goals and instructions. Students need to know how they have to do the activity and why they are doing it. In my experience, if children pay more attention because they understand why it is important.

3.       The element of surprise. Teachers usually always follow the same structure in every class, but we all love to have a little surprise for a change. Surprise activities that change the everyday routine can make the day special. Goals and instructions have to be very clear to students.

4.       Variety is the Spice of Life. As in the previous point, changes can make our day special. To have a routine is good for everyone, but having a great variety of activities and games to practice the language make the class more easygoing for students and teachers at the same time.

5.       Friendly Competition. I personally like this point very much. In life we need to know how to cooperate with others. But it is also very important to know how to lose and how to win with friendly and healthy competition. In teams students can play different sort of games and also it can be in pairs or even individual, depending on your goals and what you want to achieve with that activity or game. We should make sure that everyone is participating and they all get the same chances to participate. Moreover, it does not have to be a punctual activity, it can be something done during the whole term. For example rewarding those who participate actively in the classroom, those who made a good dictation, those who brought the perfect homework during the whole week, etc.

An activity that I like very much to use to review vocabulary and to make students speak in a friendly competition situation is the following, it is divided in two parts.

1^st part

The activity is about guessing different words related to the unit that the teacher will write on the board (or project on the screen). The class will be divided in groups (2 or 3 depending on the total number of students). Everyone in the group will be facing the board (and the word) except one member of the team. That student who is not looking at the word will have to guess it with the descriptions and examples that his or her team mates can provide. The first team who says out loud the word (so the teacher can hear it) gets the point of the round. Every time that the word is changed, the student who guesses changes too, so everyone has to guess at least once.

2^nd part

All the words are written down in little pieces of paper and they are facing down on the table so nobody can see it. In turns of 30 seconds (or 1 minute) the students will pass one by one (first one team, then the other and so on) describing as many words as possible so anyone in the team can guess it. Students can pass to another word as many times as they wish. The game will be finished when there won’t be any words left. At the end they will count the words that they have guessed, counting one point per word.

Finally, they will see how many points they have achieved between the first and the second part.

If you are looking forward to know more activities to make your students speak English, check out these blogs:

http://anglolang.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/getting-students-to-speak-getting.html

http://freeenglishlessonplans.com/2014/05/05/modals-of-obligation-necessity-and-prohibition-pictionary/

I hope you found this information useful for future English lessons.

Thanks for reading!

References:

Teacher Joe. “Encourage Your Students to Speak Out in English” Teacherjoe.us, n.d. Web 6 May 2014

<http://www.teacherjoe.us/TeachersMotivate.html>

Martin, David. “How to get your students to speak 100% English”. Eflpress.com, n.d. Web 6 May 2014

<http://www.eflpress.com/teacher/100.html>

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