Teach English in Xijing Zhen - Changzhi Shi

Games are popular activities, enjoyed by learners both young and old. From early development on, play and learning have gone hand in hand, as parents encourage their children to experiment. Games can be used to elicit interaction in the classroom and establish rapport with the students, can add diversity into any stage of a lesson plan and enhances the accessibility of the learning experience. One of the most common games utilized in any group setting are icebreakers. Icebreakers are designed to jump start the communication process, getting a potentially disparate group talking to each other, while having a little fun in the process. Successful icebreakers are accompanied by some simple game mechanic that provides the stimulus for the interaction. An icebreaker about what kinds of games students enjoy playing provides the teacher insight into what activities his class might enjoy. While simple and straightforward, icebreakers are effective in eliciting responses from the students, and the more fun the hook, the more eagerly they will participate. One of the strengths of a good game is that it allows each student an opportunity to participate. Cooperative games can pair up students of varying strength to work towards a common goal. Students will appreciate when a game is overseen fairly by a teacher who encourages fun and experimentation. When the teacher participates in a game his or herself, having fun right alongside their students, they will come to see the instructor as someone who can be approached and worked with. A game during the engage stage can be effective in introducing the subject material and getting everyone to start using their English skills, all while working together and having fun. Introducing players to a new game can provide many opportunities to ask questions of the class, such as how they think the game is played, what they think the pieces mean, or perhaps whether or not they think the game could be fun to play. Many games are blended together with a narrative, allowing even more advanced classes to challenge themselves by extrapolating on what they think the story is about or collaboratively crafting a narrative to fit the game. Games and game mechanics can even be called on during the study stage. A worksheet presented as a game can give students encouragement to work towards its completion. If each successfully completed worksheet accumulates towards a shared goal, students will naturally be inclined to support each other. If the engage stage introduces a new game to the class, an accompanying worksheet could be used to reinforce the vocabulary and the rules of the game. For a more advanced class, a game with a story or a historical component to it could provide material for a reading exercise. In addition to common games focused and adapted towards directly enhancing language skills, an activate game activity could encourage students to use English instead of their native language while playing games that would otherwise be familiar. Students could be paired up to play a well-known video game, using directional vocabulary or concentrating on verbs and adverbs to describe what the character, controlled by the other student, is doing. Naturally, if during the previous two stages the class was both introduced to a new game and given a worksheet on how to play the game in English, a logical activate stage activity would be to actually play the game. Using your newly acquired language skills, while simultaneously reinforcing them with visual and tactile sensations, is a huge benefit of adding games to the activate stage. Games encourage participation by the students and can be particularly effective in getting low-motivation students to engage. In a day and age where everyone can keep their favorite games within arm’s reach, utilizing games in the classroom regularly is important. Many students have limited attention spans, and fun activities like games can help them focus. Other students are motivated by competition and doing well in a game can be very rewarding for them. Anticipation of success in the next game could provide motivation for homework and study. Many popular mobile games feature the collection of an assortment of characters, and the concept of collection could similarly be adapted to language and vocabulary skills. Physical games also provide a great chance to get out of the classroom and into a park or field; an occasional change of environment can hardly be a bad thing. Overall, games allow in-class opportunities for gratification more commiserate with favorite out-of-class activities. Most people, especially young people, enjoy playing games. Games are also far more prolific now than ever before. When a student is happy and enjoying themselves, the learning process is much easier for both the teacher and the pupil. Incorporating games into the classroom engages students and allows the teacher to better compete against the many distractions that the modern learner has to deal with. By working with the class, the teacher will find games of a certain stripe to be more successful than others. The widespread proliferation of games gives the teacher plenty of resources to use to teach English in almost any field or on any subject matter, all the while making sure their class is having enough fun to forget that they are learning.