The Power of Games Using games to teach English Language David Kinder argues that games can be a powerful tool in the English classroom, and describes some games for teaching grammar and other aspects of language, at A Level and GCSE Ia his seminal book on te ting practice, Teaching Today, Geoff Pety has an imeresting chapter on using ‘games in the elasroom, ‘Games ean produce intense involvement, he wits, ‘and a quality of concentration hing method can match.” 1 know of many teachers who would agiee wit this. Quiz them carefully however, and you may Find Unt their enthusiasn for ames has a incidental learning, their priary puxpose sto provide a bi oF fun, Whist 1 have no problem with the idea that games can be fun, the purpose ofthis article isto argue fora more radial faith in the power of games in the no other limitation: they may deliver a bit of English clasoom to deliver actual learning, Used sll vital learning tool for delivering bos content and skills every day, not just as an end of term mes can be This article will focus in particular on A Level English Language, but many of the stitegies can be used lower down the sehool, Teaching English Language at this level requites that students lear skills which are of pantculary complex and alstret nature (clause analysis for example) as well as taking on a large body of challenging linguistic Wicory. The games that I have seen ‘working cover both these needs, Cards and Boards - Grammar Games and the fundamentals of the English Language Students arvive at A Level knowing only small amounts of grammar. Ofien their knowledge will consist of knosving the difference between adjectives and nouns and some basic understanding of pronouns. It is less likely that they will know the difference berswen abstract and concrete nouns and, once you move beyond word level to look at sentoace types, most KSS teachers would, I think, agree that they know nothing at all There is nothing wrong ‘wih this. tis conceptual, abstract thinking that best is A Level stidy, and i is not necessary to be able to analyse cluses to get an A* in GCSE English, At A Level though, they have to know about grammar = and games help students grapple with both the pans and the processes of English geamimax EnglshDrarlesla—_Jun9 2010 hatch otaming Cogs. Te begin at the beginning with word classes, wh used to be called ‘pars of speech’, There are eight of them, Four open ~ nouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs = and four closed — prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns ad determiners although there is some disagreement about hhow much the fat m0 overlap: is my" a possessive pronoun of « possessive determiner). Students need to know them if they are to see what writers are doing in texts fr all sons of reasons. How, for example, can you snipulation without being able to spot a medal aunilany verb? How, then, can games help the learning of word leam the tue art oft classes? Some inspirational teachers I have been hicky enough to work with have introduced me to a wide range of options here, many of them geat fun, There is, for example, the old favourlte of doing, an aetion ‘inthe manner of the word’ In grammar tems, this means simply asking students to wete an intransitive dynamic verb in its present panciple form (walking, running) on one bit of card and an adverb of manner (sneakily cunningly) on another and put each in a diferent hat ‘The hats are passed 10 a volunteer who takes one verb and one adverb and has to do the action in the manner OF the adverb. Another I have seen work very well involves puting a ‘sion up on a Powerpoint slide along the lines of once upon atime a students took up English Language the slide: you cough for a verb, laugh for a noun and so fon. The whole class gathers up front and! as you read the story they have to make the sound or do the aetion that goes with the word class of every word in the tony. Both these examples fit into the class of consolation ames, te kind of thing you do atthe end ofa long, lesson where students have been introduced to _group of eager AS There is code on2 definitions of panicular word classes. This pus them more in the “ret” category than some of the games to be liscussod here, but the fact that such games can be sed as 20 minute activities to change the atmosphese in the classeoom and cement learning is nevertheless very nportant, They are sill there, ro he used, every week There are games, however, which can actually teach the frudamemtals of won classes, One strategy T have developed myself with the help of colleagues in 180 diferent English departments in the last two years isto tise word cards, It is e257 to make wp your own (although relatively inexpensive commercial versions are available) with the word on one side and its word class fn the exer. These two games, which work wel, itustate the point Games for Teaching Word Classes 1 Students work in pairs. They find an abstract and a concrete noun, They hold them up, round the class, so that the word class, is being properly aired. They then put it back into a pack of cards with a mixture of word classes init. n their pair, one student holds up a word, reading the word class off the back of the card and the other has to identify whether itis a noun and what kind ff noun its. Students identify as many as they ean in a minute and then swap roles and repeat. Games for Teaching Word Classes 2 Students play a simple rummy-type card game, where they have to collect words of a particular word class by picking up and discarding in-turn from the pack in front of them. When they have three ofa kind they put the set down on the table. ‘Runs! can also be made, but instead of sequences of ascending numbers ‘they must create little sentences. Once you have got all your cards out you call Rummy and the game stops. These two games are about building failarey with won! classes, ina tactile way. There is scope forthe teacher to work round the class 26 the students are happily and relevanly occupied and discuss the effect of won! classes in particular contexts, perhaps testing students on how they recognised a word's word class during 2 game There are g ‘The game femtured below has been proven to work by a number of colleagues, with GCSE studenis as well as A Level stents, ancl allows great flexibility forthe teicher to draw out the learning without spoiling the fun +, however, that do more than this Games for Teaching Word Classes 3 ‘Students work in pais or small groups. You get hold of some Ad card, cut into thick strips lengthways, in 8 colours. You write down a word on a strip of each colour following this colour scheme: verb = green; noun = pink; adjective = orange; adverb = blue; preposition = brown; determiner yellow; red = pronoun; purple = conjunction. You stick these Up at the front of the class and explain briefly what they al are and what they do. You then give each group strips of card in the colours that relate to word clases you are working on in that lesson, So if you want to teach nouns, adjectives and determiners you give them pink, orange and yellow card. You draw attention ‘to the example words stuck on the board at the front and, pethaps give some basic definitions of them (they will know ‘them if they have played the games above). You then ask: ‘them to write their own examples on the cards 3, You work round, checking what they are planning te write before they commit to paper. Enginorirameia ine 20104, Given that you are focusing on nouns, adjectives and determiners you might, at this stage, pause and talk about noun phrases, ‘asking them to hold up the phrases they have made for others to see and discuss what noun phrases are. 5. When you are ready to play the game, the students bring up their words and place them in ples, according to colour, at the front. If ‘they ate only providing three word clases you need to have written out words belonging to the other word clases yourself so ‘that you have 7 or 8 piles of coloured card, face down, at the front of the class (7 because it soften a good idea to miss out subordinating conjunctions until you are tackling complex sentences) 6. You then cal a group up and you give them 1 minute to select a word of each word dass from the piles and make a sentence on. ‘he board (blobs of pre-rolled blu-tac are useful here). There is ‘then feverish activity and much cursing and laughter. At the end lf the minute you shout ‘stop’ and the students step back from What they have created. They get a point for every word included ina grammatical sentence, Any words left over are put to one side and count against them 7. There is then a brief and vital moment when you can ride the wave of enthusiasm that comes from the game playing to draw attention to the words on the board. Why, for example, in the sentence below (3 points scored), is there no way to include the preposition, the pronoun and the conjunction in the sentence? What word classes would be needed to include them? You can ask ‘them to add more word cards to make 3 grammatical sentence and have a bref discussion about why certain word classes are needed to make a sentence work. 1s eee This spell of actual teaching ean last as long complex gr nae, This will alost certainly mean students have stamina fori. The minute the teacher feels tht Wie interest is Nagging they can call up another group to play their raund, Thus @ simictre can b ‘maintained and waching and learning of grammatical concepis ean also be achieved, all sustained by the competitive instine, Games for Higher Level Grammar Games have a habit of growing organically, I find. The more you pay them, the more you want to exeate therm, and when « concept i diffi It to.convey, a game seems to emerge t0 help solve the problem. Higher level _grammar fits inv this category. AAs stuclents move through an A Level English Language course, most specifications require them to take on more EnglihoramsMadla ne 2010 needing to know concepts such as how the passive voice fs formed. IL will no doubt mean being able to spot the difference between a simple, compound and complex sentence as well as an abiliy to identify and use sentences with different ‘branches’ ~ where the comple. sentence comes before or after the main clause, for effect. may mean that they have 10 identity types of dependent clause. There are mes whieh can handle all these things ‘One amazingly versatile resource which every English department in the fand should have is set of mini whiteboards. They are the Key to wrning a rather state toand. sgmes which will ensure high levels of involvement and ‘even a ceritin degree of (on-task) screaming and shouting, A game that typifies the approach you cin take o of grammatical questions and answers into