Teach English in Appleton - TEFL Courses

Games in the Classroom (57) I have chosen Games in the classroom as my topic because I believe that games are a fun way to learn and can be used for students of all ages and levels. In this research I have looked into what, why, when and how games can be used in the classroom. What Games? The internet contains a wealth of game ideas that can be used in tefl. Among the hundreds of games listed are: Bad fruit, What's the Question, Toilet-paper Icebreaker, Battleships, Bang-bang as well as more traditional word searches, hangman, charades, Pictionary etc. See: http://iteslj.org/c/games.html, www.iteslj.org/games , www.community.eflclassroom.com , www.esljunction.com Why games? Games make learning more interesting and can be a way to involve even the most reluctant students. On www.eflclassroom.com it states ‘The right games are highly educational, motivating and effective for use in the classroom or for practice at home.' Visual games can be an impressive aide-memoire. As a Sunday school teacher I once read an idea to teach the 10 commandments using objects and decided to put it to the test. Using the objects mentioned I was able to teach a Sunday school class of 10 year olds all Ten Commandments in a 40 minute lesson. Not only that, they remembered them all several weeks later using only the visual prompts. Why was this possible? I believe it was because games can be highly effective educational tools. When is it appropriate to use games in the tefl Classroom? You can use games at any time during a tefl class: For example, a game can be used at the start of the lesson, as a warm-up or ice-breaking activity, or as a refresher to a topic continued over from a previous lesson. During the lesson games can be used to re-enforce the vocabulary or grammar you have just taught. At the end, games help students to digest and revise what has been taught. Games can also be great fillers for lessons that finish earlier than anticipated or for quicker students. How can games be used by the tefl teacher? The tefl teacher can use games as aide-memoires as mentioned earlier. On the website www.tflbootcamp.com It states ‘Games and activities create situations where students can use the target language of the lesson in a playful situation or in presentation or production exercises. Games and activities allow opportunities to use language repeatedly and to build a habit from the structures provided.' ‘700 Classroom Activities' by D. Seymour is one of an indefatigable list of books giving ideas and advice on how games can be used in any classroom. Games can be used to teach numbers, days of the week, body parts and a host of other topics, as well as being used to teach grammar and conversational skills. See one example below: How to use a game to review the parts of the body: I found this game on www.elscafe.com Divide students into groups of three or four and choose one of them to be the "model". Give each group a set of small cards with the name of parts of the body you want to review and some scotch tape (it would be nice if you had the cards laminated, and each group should use a different color - yes, students do pay attention to these small details!!). You should use easy parts of the body as well as those which are hard to be remembered (you can also introduce two or three new words). Play some lively song and give them nothing more than 3-4 minutes to try to label the parts of the body of the model. After that have the models stand in front of the rest of the class and start checking their work giving one point for each correct card and maybe 2 for the new words. This game could provide much amusement when errors are corrected by removing the labels and placing them on the correct part. In conclusion I feel that using games in the classroom greatly enhances any topic and allows tefl teachers to be creative as they plan unique, informative and exciting lessons.