)) PREMIR oposiciones INGLES - 12 MAESTROS 2014/2015 TEMA 18: FUNCIONES DEL JUEGO Y DE LA CREATIVIDAD EN EL APRENDIZAJE DE LAS LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS. DEFINICION Y TIPOLOGIA DE JUEGOS PARA EL APRENDIZAJE Y EL PERFECCIONAMIENTO LINGUISTICO. EL JUEGO COMO TECNICA LUDICO-CREATIVA DE ACCESO A LA COMPETENCIA COMUNICATIVA EN LENGUA EXTRANJERA.) INGLES 2014/15 )) Pera ean nw premires - INDEX 0. INTRODUCTION. 1. FUNCTIONS OF GAMES AND CREATIVITY IN LANGUAGE LEARNING. 2. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF GAMES USED IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. COMPETITIVE AND COOPERATIVE. LINGUISTIC AND COMMUNICATIVE. ACCORDING TO TECHNIQUE. ACCORDING TO GROUPING. ACCORDING TO MEDIUM. ACCORDING TO LEARNER'S AND TEACHER'S ROLES. CONCLUSION. RY NNNNN 3. FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE THROUGH GAMES. 3.1. COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. 3.2, GAMES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. 3.2.1, STRUCTURE GAMES. 3.22. VOCABULARY GAMES. PRONUNCIATION GAMES. 1. SPELLING GAMES, LISTEN/ READ AND DO GAMES. ‘MIME AND ROLE PLAY GAMES. 3.3, GAMES ANDICTs. +. CONCLUSION: ADVANTAGES USING GAMES. 5. BIBLIOGRAPHY Pag.3INGLES 2014/15 ) ean Tero 18 www premir.es 0. INTRODUCTION. Until recently, affective factors have not been viewed as essential to the learning process and have generally been neglected by traditional teaching methodologies. The Grammar-Translation Method, through such techniques as translation, recognition of cognates, and the deductive application of rules, stresses cognitive input. The Audio- Lingual Method, employing repetition, substitution, and transformation drills as well as dialog memorization, treats language leaming as a "habit formation process.” Affective considerations have traditionally depended on the teacher's temperament. That is to say, such considerations have been incidental rather than integral to the teaching methodology and were not grounded in a conscious philosophy of pedagogy. With the growing realization of the importance of affective factors came a number ‘of new approaches to language teaching directed at the “whole person” which focused on the condition of the learner. Such holistic approaches attempt to enhance the student's readiness to learn and recognize the comfort, enjoyment, and engagement of the students as legitimate and primary concerns ofthe language teacher. 1. FUNCTIONS OF GAMES AND CREATIVITY IN LANGUAGE LEARNING. ‘As Brown observes “Game-playing has many features which make ito potentially valuable activity in the language class”. Games and creativity go hand in hand in ESL teaching and leatning, The most important functions of using games in an ESL classroom are: ‘+ Communication context: Games provide what Brown calls "meaningful contexts of genuine communication." Students need not mimic the contrived, artificial, and stilted language of textbook conversations but can attempt to formulate appropriate language to express their own thoughts and emotions. Once the student has something to say, the teacher can act asa counselor to perfect that communication. + Mood enhancement: The importance of the affective domain has already been discussed. The student's readiness to lear is influenced by physical as well as psychological factors. In playing games in small groups, students have a great deal more freedom than in more formal learning situations. The freedom to move chairs and stretch limbs contributes to a sense of autonomy and well-being. As a result, students feel more relaxed and their minds may be more attentive and receptive. A game is play and plays relaxing and enjoyable. tis obviously advantageous for students to enter into an activity with a sense of excitement and anticipation rather than foreboding, + Group-building: The teacher who is aware of the importance of the affective domain does everything in her power to make the classroom a friendly and supportive place. The relationships and interactions among students are dynamics which play a critical, Pag5Tema 18 www. premir.es PREMIR role in determining the success of a class. Small group work fosters greater intimacy and ‘cooperation among students and provides an opportunity for them to use their pooled ‘knowledge to solve problems. MAESTROS INGLES 2014/15 )) * Student participation: The primary role of the teacher, | have come to believe, is not 10 "teach" but to set up situations in which the student can lear. The old adage that "you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink" is particularly apt for learning, It is the student who is finaly responsible for his own learning and he must play an active role in that process. Student-centered classes try to reverse the traditional situation in which the teacher is the actor (ie. active) and the students are the audience. Small group work, as discussed earlier, is a way of assuring that the teacher has a less obtrusive role to play. While playing games, the students may entirely forget about the presence of the teacher, which means that they are absorbed in their task and focusing their attention where it does the most good. + Competitiveness: Rivalry plays an important role in all human affairs and to some extent the progress of civilization seems to be linked to competition. There has probably never been a human society in which competition has not played a part. Games, contests and matches of skill seem, indeed, to be universals in the human experience. Because competition is such a pervasive human characteristic and game- playing such a natural trait, competitive activities may well be able to facilitate the learning process. A word of caution, however, is necessary here. Competition is @ double-edged sword, While it can promote progress in some circumstances, it can, just as easily retard it by causing intimidation. The inclusion of elements of chance, which will be discussed later, is one way of curtailing potentially negative aspects of competition. ‘+ Incidental or spontaneous learning: Anyone who has played Monopoly or any similar board game is aware of how players “pick up” pieces of information without conscious ‘memorization. Players easily assimilate such data as the cost of Marvin Gardens or the rent of Boardwalk with a hotel, This kind of spontaneous, unconscious learning can be put to good use in the language classroom, Observers have noted that when excessive attention is given to the performance of an action, failure frequently results. A Zen ‘master, for example, explained to his archery student that, "The more obstinately you try to learn how to shoot the arrow for the sake of hitting the goal, the less you will succeed -.-" Likewise, Gallwey attributes tennis players’ problems to excessive self-consciousness and Stevick adapts the idea to language learning in his theory of the "Critical Self. When a pseudo-objective is set to absorb the attention of the participant, the real objective is frequently achieved without special effort, {Fa student is drilled on a sentence pattern, he ‘may make errors because of his very attention. But ifthe student's attention is distracted by some unrelated task such as playing a game, the forgotten linguistic objective may be fulfilled effortlessly. Game-playing is an especialy effective device for masking the real lesson. The discussion thus far has pointed to the unique suitability of games for the ESL Classroom. The six features of game-playing just discussed, in addition to the theory of language learning outlined above, set the stage for the development of an activity which Pagé) INGLES 2014/15 ) ir Toma 18 ane can serve many purposes at the same time. Two of the limitations of small group work cited above, namely the difficulty of monitoring and the uncertainty of equal participation by all students, must aso be taken into consideration. 2. DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF GAMES USED IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT. What's a game? Let us take these situations: * Alitte boy is kicking a ballin the house garden. Is thisa game? The answer isno, what the boy isdoing is play. The ittle boy is now kicking the ball with the intention of putting it into a goal, his father hhas told him to use his feet only but never the hands. I this a game? Yes its What is the difference then? In the first example, the boy played without any given rule. In the second situation, the kicking was ordered by a set of clearly stated rules. Add more players, form teams and give points for successful achievement of the aim and you will have ‘a competitive game. So, the characteristics of games are © Agame is governed by rules: playing just to pass the time will not have the same effect, To make a simple activity into a game just give a couple of rules and that is al © A game has objectives: One of the rules, and probably the main one, is the achievement of an objective. This objective can be something like making points for correctness or finishing an activity frst. © A game is a closed activity: games must have a beginning and an end. It must be ‘easy for the players, or the teacher, to know who is about to reach the aim. ‘A game needs less supervision from the teacher: this must be understood as linguistic supervision. Sometimes the game is conducted by the teacher who acts as judge, scorer and/or referee. © Itis easier for students to keep going: Compared with pair or group work, a game has a playful element that other interaction patterns do not have. This makes the activity more attractive ‘A game is basically play governed by rules. A language game is exactly the same, but with clear linguistic rules to which all participants in the activity must conform. A language game is an activity with rules, a goal, and an element of fun. There are many kinds of games, which can be grouped under different headings:Tema 18 www premines PREMIR MAESTROS INGLES 2014/15 )) 2.1.- COMPETITIVE AND CO-OPERATIVE GAMES, We can inguish between competitive and cooperative games. In competitive games there is an overt competition between teams, or sometimes of an individual against the rest of the cass. The competition may also be of individuals against other individuals. The object of this type of game is finishing or reaching the end before the other competitors, making more points, surviving elimination, or avoiding penalties. The rules may require the players to produce correct language as part of the game and force students to draw conclusions more quickly. Our pupils race to be the first to reach the goal In cooperative games, the main action is centred upon trying to reach the aim in cooperation. This type of game is excellent to encourage the shy students, since it requires the participation of all the members of a team, group or pair. Some typical activities may include the completion of a drawing, putting things in order, grouping things, finding a pair ‘or finding hidden things, Students are involved in the exchange of information to complete the task and in giving/ following instructions. our pupils work together towards a common goal. Generally speaking, itis better to use co-operative games, as the competitive element or the need often distorts the language used. If, however, we use competitive games we must bear in mind that the teams should be evenly matched. When teams are unevenly distributed, certain groups or teams always win and thisis discouraging for the others. It is also advisable to vary the method of scoring, Psychologically it is better to give points for success than to take them away for failure, even if this procedure keeps the scorers very busy. Images of things which climb or expand are useful as a means of visually representing the score. Thus, if the number of points to be scored is small, they can be marked on ladders as they are won. Human or animal shapes interest our pupils more than mere dots or abstract symbols and if we use coloured chalks each group can have a different colour. We can also ask our pupils to draw their favourite animal and stick it with blue-tack, moving the figure one step up for each correct response. Another way of showing scores is to draw or stick one symbol for each point along a horizontal line. The object may be associated with the names of the teams, especially, i they ial, bird or flower names. Other possibilities may include adding wagons to a train, stars to a sky, or even accessories to a Teenage mutant turtle. The main point here is that games should be well-prepared and pleasantly conducted, so that our pupils use language actively 2.2.- LINGUISTIC AND COMMUNICATIVE GAMES. Games can be divided into lingui games. ic or code-control games and communication \guistic games aim 0 practise new language items and develop accuracy, often taking the form of hidden drills. For example if we give our pupils the beginning of a sentence such as “I went t0 the 200 and saw..." they have to remember in the correct order several animals that we will show with flashcards. The pupil or team who remembers most animals Pag 8INGLES 2014/15 (D) rie Tera 18 www.premines in the correct order is the winner. Through constant repetition, this game provides practice in the regular past tense of see and vocabulary items connected with animals On the other hand, the main objective communicative games is getting the message ‘over to the other players and reacting appropriately to their messages. For example, when | iving instructions, the player giving them must be clear, and the player following them | must do exactly what he is required to. The tasks are usually practical, like following | instructions, drawing, persuading other players, etc. This means that players will concentrate | ‘on the task rather than on the language. Besides, students can see the results of their use of language at once, which will help to build students’ confidence. Communication games tend | to move away from a focus on accuracy to the development of fluency and more purposeful | communication, that i, they are activities with a non-linguistic goal or aim, These games often | rely on an information gap, where one pupil has information that the other pupil needs, in ‘order to achieve something, Successful completion of the game will involve the carrying out of a task such as drawing in a route on a map, filling in a chart, or finding two matching pictures, rather than the correct production of a structure. However, in order to carry out this task it may be necessary to use language, and by careful construction of the task it will be ‘ossible to specify in advance exactly what language will be required. As we have already said, communicative games put more emphasis on successful ‘communication than on correctness of language. Therefore, they are to be found at the fiuency end of the fluency-accuracy spectrum, using Hadfield (1984) term, or at the communicative end of the communicative continuum, using Harmer’s, as they provide as much concentrated practice as a traditional drill with the motivational advantage of involving real communication, it has been suggested that the most useful place for these | ‘games is at the free stage of the traditional progression from presentation through practice | to production or free practice. At this stage they can serve both as the culmination of a | lesson, enabling us to note areas of difficulty that we will resume with remedial and follow- | up activities. | z .- ACCORDING TO TECHNIQUE. Games make use of a variety of different techniques and procedures. Variety is one of the principles of successful language learning as it helps to maintain motivation, We have already mentioned the information gap principle. Other techniques may include (Hadfield 1984): Guessing: guessing games are a familiar variant of the information gap principle (problem games based on it may be one-sided, as in the definition, or reciprocal, where both pupils have information they must share to solve a common). The pupil with the information withholds it, while others must guess what it might be. * Searching: searching games also use the information gap principle. Pupils must obtain a large amount of information to fill in a questionnaire or solve a problem. Each pupil is simultaneously a giver and a collector of information. For example, our pupil must walk ‘around the class and find someone: ¥ Who likes cheese. Pag-9MAESTROS INGLES 2014/15 Tema 18 y wwnw.premires PREMIR Who isa Barcelona fan. Who likes Onda Vaselina. Who has read a book in “El Barco de Vapor’ series. ‘© Matching: matching games also involve a transfer of information. Our pupils must ‘match identical pairs of cards or pictures. This can be done asa walk about exercise or as a card game on the snap principle. ‘+ Matching up: matching -up games are based on a jigsaw principle. The jigsaw principle is used in cooperative learning activities, each member of the group has a piece of information needed to complete a group task. Through discussion the group must decide on a common output. ‘+ Exchanging and collecting: exchanging and collecting games are based on the barter principle. Pupils must exchange articles or cards for others in order to complete a set. This may be played as a whole class activity or as an inter-group activity. ‘+ Puzzle solving: combining activities are those in which the players must act on certain information in order to arrange themselves in groups such as families or people living in the same flat, All these games may include elements of puzzle-solving or simulation, Puzzle or problem-solving activities occur when our pupils must obtain or share information in order to solve a problem or mystery ‘© Role play and simulation: many games may also include an element of role play or simulation. In the simulation the pupils are in a situation as themselves, while in a role- play they are acting, they are playing a role. Games which include role-play or simulation are not as free as proper role-plays or simulations. There is an element of closeness as or pupils have a specific task to complete. Role-play is specially effected with shy pupils as they do not have to take responsibilty or their own actions and words. 2.4. ACCORDING TO GROUPING. Games may be divided into different types according to the type of grouping it will make use of. We may distinguish: + Pair games. + Group games. ‘+ Team games. ‘+ Whole class games, All these activities require some flexibility in the constitution of groups and organisation of the classroom. Division into groups or teams should not be done on every occasion. It is better for our pupils to be in the same group or team throughout the year because in this way their sense of belonging remains undisturbed. To foster this integration and motivate ‘our pupils we, teacher and pupils alike, must find names for the groups, such as lions, tigers, bears, and so on. Teams are larger than groups. Is it not very common to have more than ‘two teams with around fifteen pupils each, and three groups in each a team, with around five. As far as class organisation is concerned, Hadfield (1984) suggests a U-shape if possible. Pupils can work with the person sitting next to them for pair work and groups of Pag-10) INGLES 2014/15 )). Premr Tema 18 wow. premires four or five can easily be constituted by alternate pairs moving their chairs to the inner side of the U. Breaking the U apart will result in two teams facing each other. Finally, whole class activities, which may involve walk about activities, can take place in the empty area in the centre of the U-shape. Ifthe area we are teaching in has not yet suffered a decrease in the birth-rate and we have a crowded class with traditional front facing desks, we can stil put desks together for pair work: form small groups by making people turn their chairs round, to face the two people behind them, and we can remove desks if there is no room available for the pupils to walk about without danger. We have not talked about individual games. They are not very common but we may have this type of arrangement with writing games, which we are to discuss next. 2.5. ACCORDING TO THE MEDIUM, So fat we have been discussing games which were entirely, or atleast predominantly oral, However, if games are to play an important part in the language learning process we should be able to use them to practise writing skills. Writing games are more suitable for >ur oldest pupils, those aged 10-12. One of the main difficulties our pupils face when writing, both in Spanish and in English, is ‘Why do I have to write?” Games may give them the reason to overcome this, difficulty. On the one hand, games give a clear aim. On the other hand, they also provide an audience for the writer, Hadfield (1990) distinguished eight basic types or writing games: ‘+ Audience and context: these activities develop out of a clear context (one of our pupils birthday, for instance) and have a clearly defined audience (thank-you letter for a present). They may involve exchange and reply, guessing, matching or role-play techniques. ‘+ Imaginative stimulus: these activities use poems, music, pictures or objects to fuel our pupils’ imagination. For example we can alter a well-known tale following the model on Road Dahl's ‘Litle Red Riding Hood and the Wolf” where Little Red Riding Hood gets a nice wolf coat. ‘+ Formula poems or stories: they use a simple linguistic pattern to build up a poem or story. We can ask our pupil about words related to winter and spring. Next we put them ‘on the blackboard and form a diamond shaped poem where winter words and spring words are graded so as to merge, e.: WINTER bare cold freezing raining snowing frost thaw buds leaves flowers singing playing sunny green SPRING Pag-11Tema 18 www. premir.es MAESTROS INGLES 2014/15 )) PREMIR ‘+ Creative gap games: they make use of random associations of previously unconnected ideas and lucky dips to stimulate dissociating thinking. For example, we can divide several headlines in two. We put the pieces in two bags and each pupil must take one beginning and one ending, The result, which will normally be very funny, will be the headline of an article they must write. ‘+ Making the familiar strange: these games make our pupils look at familiar things from ‘anew angle. For example, we can ask them to write a list of possible uses of a common ‘object such asa pencil a toothbrush and so on. * Describing what you see: it involves activities where our pupils must describe a picture ‘or an object in order to get information to complete their task. For example, we can hand out some drawings in a sequence. Our pupils write down what they see in their drawing and walk about with this description and without the drawing to find out next picture. ‘+ Brainstorming; itis commonly used to collect as many ideas about a topic as possible within a short specified time. The diamond poem we have already discussed is a good example of the brain storming technique. ‘© Fast writing: it involves writing spontaneously after having received a stimulus. For instance we can ask our pupils to write words beginning with a definite letter that they associate with objects that we can show in flashcards. 2 ‘ACCORDING TO LEARNER'S AND TEACHER'S ROLES. We cannot really establish a classification within games according to the roles our pupils play as they are always participants. However, if we find a pupil who occasionally does not want to participate in a particular game we can make him scorer if it is a competitive game, or consultant ifitis a co-operative game. The roles of the teacher however, can vary enormously. Depending on the type of interaction pattern caused by the game and the type of game played, the teacher's roles are very different. The teacher may be Master of Ceremonies and direct the game, or give that responsibility to a good student; in this case he will become the evaluator of the responses and occasionally the scorer of the game. Besides, the teacher might play the role of language consultant or informant. Other roles are those of monitor! corrector and referee. A classification of games into those in which the teacher plays the roles of monitor and resource centre and those where he may be a participant is the basic for a new approach to teacher-pupil relation, so important with young children being a participant enables us to control the processes within the game in a much more pupil friendly way, as well as evaluating more objectively the advantages and drawbacks of our activities. It also fosters creativity in our pupils as the barriers of school restrictions are softened in a way. 2.7.- CONCLUSION. It is clear that the preceding classification is not watertight. Games can be communicative, co-operative, oral, and can use the information-gap principle with a team. {grouping where the teacher is a participant. However, these criteria for classification do not Pag-12INGLES 2014/15 )) Pern Tema 18 vow premires tell us enough about the type of communicative competence subcomponent we are acquiring: grammatical, socio-linguistic, socio-cultural, discourse or strategic. In the next and. last section we study what communicative competence is and how games can be used to | attain it. 3. FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE — THROUGH GAMES. According to Hadfield (1984), the inclusion of games as an integral part of any language curriculum provides an opportunity for intensive language practice. We have seen how this practice is contextualised in a meaningful, relevant way and can be used as an evaluation technique, highlighting areas of difficulty. We are now going to see how games can | contribute to developing specific areas of our pupils’ communicative competence. First, We have to study what communicative competence involves in order to see the ways in which | we can use games to attain it. 3.1.- COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE, The main goal of all our teaching is to acquire what Hymes defined as ‘communicative competence. ‘Chomsky (1957) defined language as a set of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements. An able speaker has a subconscious knowledge (competence) of the grammar rules of his language which allows him to make sentences (performance) in that language. However, Dell Hymes thought that Chomsky had missed out some very important information: the rules of use. When a native speaker speaks, he does not only utter grammatically correct forms, he also knows where and when to use these sentences and to whom, Hymes, then, said, that competence by itself is not enough to explain a native speaker's knowledge and he replaced it with his own concept of communicative ‘competence. He distinguished four aspects of this competence: + Systematic potential: systematic potential means that the native speaker possesses a system that has 2 potential for creating a lot of language. This is similar to Chomsky’s competence. ‘+ Appropriacy: appropriacy means that the native speaker knows what language is appropriate in a given situation. His choice is based on the following variables, among others: = Setting, = Participant. = Purpose. = Channel. = Topic. Pag-13MAESTROS INGLES 2014/15 Tema 18 yr www premines PREMIR * Occurrences occurrence means that the native speaker knows how something is said in the language and act accordingly. ‘+ Feasibility: feasibility means that the native speaker knows whether something is possible in the language. Even if there is no grammatical rule to ban 20 adjective pre- head constructions we know that these constructions are not possible in the language. These four categories have been adapted by Canale and Swain into five sub- competences: ‘+ Grammar competence: it refers to what Chomsky called linguistic competence and Hymes systematic potential. itis the domain of grammatical and lexical capacity. ‘+ Discourse competence: itis the aspect of communicative competence which describes the ability to produce unified written or spoken discourse that shows coherence and cohesion and which conforms to the norms of different genres. Our pupils must be able to produce discourse in which successive utterances are inked trough rules of discourse or discourse competence. ‘+ Sociortinguistic competence: it refers to an understanding of the social context in which communication takes place, including role relationships, the shared information of the participants... ‘+ Strategic competence: it may be defined as an aspect of communicative competence which describes the ability of speakers to use verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to compensate for breakdowns in communication or to improve the effectiveness of communication. + Socio-cultural competence: it refers to the learner’s knowledge of the cultural aspect of the target language speaking countries. All these elements are part of the language as language is not something abstract but a tool for effective communication. We will now analyse games which can be used to foster the acquisition of all these elements. 3.2.- GAMES AND COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE. We divide games under six headings (Lee) according to the aspect of language learning they focus on. These headings can be misleading. We may think, for instance, that structural or vocabulary games only foster grammar competence. This is not true, as we can see in the following example, our main aim is to practise the vocabulary of shopping (grammar competence). To do this we have transformed the classroom into a shop. The shopkeepers have flashcards, drawings and some real objects, such as wine-gums or humbugs, which can normally be found in British shops (socio-cultural competence). The customers will have to use British conventions -queuing, saying please (sociolinguistic and sociocultural convention) to buy in the shop. Preparing what they have to say and ‘modifying it in case the product they want is not available will make them improve theit discourse and strategic competence. As we can all these subcomponents are inextricably knotted. Pag-t4