Games to Teach English Learners

Why should we use games to teach English learners in the classroom?

"Playing is a child's natural way of learning." - Genevieve Roth
Perhaps as busy, responsible, mature adults, we have somehow sadly forgotten what it was like to have fun. If we consider the above quote it is not difficult to realize that playing was once our own "natural way of learning" as well. So we should not look at games as just child's play, but rather as a tool that can (and should) be used for teaching English learners at all ages. The ELT Grammar Book describes games as a way "to have fun dealing with grammar as a change of pace." (Firstien, 526) However we would suggest that there is more to it than that. Games can be a safe opportunity to practice without fear of ridicule. Due to the competitive nature of many games, they can provide a great sense of accomplishment for many students and their teammates as they watch their progression.
While games to teach English learners are indeed a "change of pace" as stated above, they are also very useful tools for fluency, as "Children tend to forget they are learning and so use the language spontaneously." (Roth) In our own teaching experience, it seems the same can be true for adults. Basically, if you are having fun doing something, you don't have time to be bored or frustrated with it and will get more out of the activity.
Bear in mind when teaching English as a second language and teaching English as a foreign language, that the classroom may be the students' only exposure to the language. Games to teach English learners can help to make language learning a positive and exciting experience, which will be important and motivating to the students. If we keep students motivated and engaged in the lesson, the results can be incredible!
How do we use games to teach English learners in the classroom? Now that we realize the importance of games to teach English learners, the next step is to apply them within the classroom. When researching games to use as classroom activities, it is easy to see a correlation between popular children's games and the adapted classroom version. A creative teacher will find that almost any game can be adjusted to suit the needs of a lesson. As we are dealing with the TESL TEFL TESOL setting, it is important to be sure that any games we might use are linguistically relevant, simple to explain, easy to set up, and fun to play. (Roth) Games can be used as an ice-breaker or warm-up at the beginning of class, as an introduction activity for new vocabulary or grammar, or as a review exercise at the end of a lesson, chapter, or before an exam. While the preparation of materials may be time-consuming, " the time and effort it might require to create the materials for each game will be well worth the while, and from then on, you'll always have the materials available to you" (Firstien, 526).
Tips on games to teach English learners: We know it may be discouraging to read about having to do more preparation - especially when the phrase "time-consuming" is used. Never fear. Games to teach English learners are supposed to be fun, remember? "The ELT Grammar Book" suggests having students help you in preparing materials for the games. "Not only will that cut down on your work, but it will also give your students practice on the language points your game is focusing on." (Firstien, 527) You will find that many students enjoy being part of the creative process and will be more than willing to help - this is especially true with younger students. Another suggestion is to limit groups to four or five students so that the students won't "get restless waiting for their turn to come up again." Depending on the size of the class, this may mean that you will have to walk around the room to monitor various groups and assist them during the game as needed. (Firstein, 528)
Genevieve Roth makes the following suggestion for presenting the game: "Play the game with one or two pupils in front of the class as a demonstration." This will allow the others to see a model of what is to be done and how the game is to be played. She also suggests that the students sit in a circle around you as you explain. You may decide to act out the game by playing first one part and then the other for them to see. And finally, she suggests that you give the game a chance and not be discouraged, as it sometimes takes time for students to understand the game enough to really enjoy playing it. (Roth) Roth's work is geared mostly toward teaching English to children; however her advice may still be helpful when working with adults.
Examples on games to teach English learners: If you are still uncertain of what kind of game to teach English learners you may want to use or how to go about making them work for your classroom, perhaps the following examples may help.
-Tic-Tac-Toe (British Naughts and Crosses) is altered slightly to accommodate for team play, but the traditional objective of three-in-a-row remains the same. Students must work together to correctly answer questions in order to gain a chance to place an X or O (based on their team) and each person on the team gets a chance to answer for their group. Questions can be in the form of pictures which match vocabulary, to creating a sentence using grammar points, or whatever you choose to review with the students. (Firstien, 526)
-Concentration is a game to teach English learners that uses cards to match vocabulary or grammar points and is best played in circle-groups so that everyone can see the cards. The students can help you by making pairs of cards so that they get extra practice. Once you've shuffled each set of cards, they should be laid face-down in the middle of the circle. Each student takes a turn by flipping two cards face-up. If they match, the student wins those cards. If they do not match, the student must flip them face-down again and continue to pay attention so that they can make a match on their next turn. Students will help each other decide when a match is made, but you will want to monitor as well and perhaps have each student share their pairs at the end of the game for extra review. (Firstien, 527)
-The Clothesline is a game to teach English learners of building sentences using different words each time. Have many different options for each part of speech, including punctuation, in piles. Students take turns (in teams or individually) changing the words in order to create sentences. Students read the sentence they've created upon completion, and points are awarded for correct use of vocabulary, grammar and punctuation. The student or team with the most points at the end of the round wins. (Firstien, 529)
-Oral Matching can be a fun way for English learners to mingle and practice conversation. Each student is given a slip of paper with either a question or an answer on it (for more variety, they can have one of each, so long as they don't match!) and they are to read their questions and answers to their fellow students in order to decide which ones go together. For more fun, use a dialogue or story to create your question and answer slips. Once each student has found his or her matching pair(s), you can have the students put it back together in the original order and read it together. (Firstien, 531).
-Scrambler is more of a puzzle type of activity that can be fun for English learners as a break from traditional worksheets. Create a target word that you wish the students to discover (this can be an answer to a key question as well, if you wish). Use various vocabulary words that contain letters to be used in the target word. Then, scramble the vocabulary words so that the students must discover from each scrambled word the vocabulary to go letter-by-letter in the boxes behind it. The target word can then be placed in a vertical fashion using those letters from the vocabulary. If you are using a key question, be sure to leave a blank so that the students can re-write the target word from the boxes once they've discovered the answers to all the scrambled words.
We hope these ideas and suggestions on games to teach English learners have been helpful for you and that you can find a way to use them in your next class. Have fun!
References:
Firsten, Richard, and Patricia Killian. The ELT Grammar Book. Alta Book Center Publishers, 2002. Appendix 3.
Roth, Genevieve. Teaching Very Young Children. Richmond Publishing, 1998. Chapter 5; Action Games.


Take from file:///D:/Games%20to%20teach%20English%20to%20Young%20Learners.htm    

The example to analysis poem

My Heart Leaps Up

  by William Wordsworth

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;

And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

1.  PARAPHRASE

Line 1 :

My heart leaps up when I behold

-         The heart has no legs. This makes it hard for it to literally leap on its own.

-         We can infer that the heart will "leap," even if the speaker is otherwise depressed. Perhaps he actually feels a kind of jolt in his chest. 

Line 2 :

A rainbow in the sky:

-         We find out what makes the speaker's heart leap up: a rainbow. Because of the strategic line break, and the indentation, our hearts leap a little bit when we read this line too—or at least our eyes do. 

Line 3 :

So was it when my life began; 

• Here we learn that the speaker has had this feeling about rainbows ever since his life began, which we take to mean his childhood, when he was just a wee tyke.

Line 4 :

So is it now I am a man; 

-         Now we learn that the speaker still gets excited by the sight of a rainbow, even as a mature adult. We understand that the speaker is reflecting as an adult, but really, he's just a kid at heart.

Line 5 - 6 :

So be it when I shall grow old,
   Or let me die!

-         So we've heard about the thrill of rainbows in the speaker's past and present. Now we hear about the future. The speaker is sure that when he grows old, he will still be thrilled at the sight of a rainbow. 

-         Then we get an indented line again, and we encounter a bit of a pause, at least visually. At the end of this pause, the speaker lets us know that he is so thrilled by rainbows that, if he ever lost this thrill, he would want to die. Intense. 

-         For him, life without the capacity to appreciate nature's beauty would not be worth living.

Line 7 :

The Child is father of the Man; 

-         The speaker has shown us how important it is that something that thrilled him when he was young continues to thrill him when he grows old. He is saying here that his childhood formed who he is as an adult—his self, as a child, fathered, or gave birth to, his adult self. It seems the speaker treasures the fact that he still has a childlike capacity for wonder.

-         Also note the capitalization of the words "Child" and "Man" in this line. This is a way to draw attention to the general truth of the line. It is meant to have a wider meaning than just in the speaker's life. A rainbow brings out the child in all of us.

Line 8 – 9 :

And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

-         The speaker now expresses that he hopes nature will tie his days together forever, as we can imagine a child's days would be tied together by playing outside.

-         Well, they would all have the same thing in common. Think about when you went to the same park to play, every day of summer vacation. That experience tied your summer together. Well, here the speaker wants all of his days to feature this same feeling of wonder for the natural world. 

-         Piety normally has a religious connotation. Someone who follows the laws of their religion and is very devoted to God would be called pious. So we might interpret "natural piety" as a religion that is natural, or not forced. 

-         These two lines sort of put the rest of the poem in context. The rainbow, which thrills the speaker throughout his life, is an example of a form of natural piety, his sense of joy and wonder at the natural world. That sense is what he hopes to experience for the rest of his days, his time on earth.

2.  RHYTHM

for the rhythm of this poem is "iambic tetrameter. Iambic tetrameter just means that the poem has four beats per line (with a few exceptions), and these beats happen to be arranged in a repeating pattern of iambs, four in (almost) every line.

·         The Child is fa ther of the Man;

3.  RHYME

My heart leaps up when I behold                                     A

   A rainbow in the sky:                                                      B

So was it when my life began;                                           C

So is it now I am a man;                                                    C

So be it when I shall grow old,                                          A

   Or let me die!                                                                  B

The Child is father of the Man;                                         C

And I could wish my days to be                                        D

Bound each to each by natural piety.                                              D

4.  FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

• The first line is an example of personification: hearts don't leap, people do. This personification gives us an image of the heart's jubilation at the sight of the rainbow. 
• three lines in a row have started with the word "so," which is an example of anaphora, the literary term for multiple lines starting with the same word or phrase. 

5.  SYMBOLS

There are two kinds of symbols in this poem :
1. Nature Imagery

The speaker loves nature a bunch. Like, a whole bunch. He loves it so much, in fact, that he expresses a wish to die if he is no longer thrilled at the sight of a rainbow. While he's still alive, he wants nature in his life, every day. It's possible that he even sees nature as a form of religion or spirituality.

2. Age Imagery

This poem covers the range of human life, from childhood, to adulthood, to old age and death. It stresses the influence of childhood throughout life, not just until one "matures." The most important part of that childhood influence, for our speaker, is the unbridled joy that a child finds in the natural world.

6.  SUBJECT MATTER

The subject matter of this poem is about ”LIFE”

Because, the poem tells about the range of human life, from childhood, to adulthood, to old age and death.

7.  THEME

The theme of this poem is about someone that telling his life starting from the children life till he turned old and about his religion life.

8.  REASON

Because the speaker is telling us about the feeling he gets, has always gotten, and will always get when he sees a rainbow in the sky: his heart rejoices. He says that if he were ever to stop feeling this joy, he'd want to die. 

Video for Young Learners...what for ????

This first article will give an introduction to some of the issues surrounding video with young learners. It will discuss the benefits but also the potential drawbacks of using video, the different roles video can take and then present criteria for selecting videos. 

Some ideas for the kinds of video suitable for young learners are also given.

The second article 'Video and young learners 2' will take a look at pre-viewing, while-viewing and post-viewing video activities and will be supported by 3 lesson plans illustrating these activities.

• What are the benefits of using video in the classroom

• Drawbacks

• Role of video

• Criteria for selecting video

• Video types

• Further reading and bibliography

What are the benefits of using video in the classroom?
Learners aged 3 - 8

• Children enjoy language learning with video
• 'One of the aims of teaching English to young children is to instil in them the idea that language learning is a happy experience, and video creates an attractive enjoyable learning environment.' Tomalin (1991: 48)

• Video is an effective way of studying body language
• Younger language learners are still learning about the world around them.

• Children gain confidence through repetition
• Young children love to hear stories again and again and the same goes for video. By watching a video several times children can learn by absorption and imitation.

All Young Learners

• Video communicates meaning better than other media
• Video presents language in context in ways that a cassette can't. Learners can see who's (or what's!) speaking, where the speakers are, what they're doing, etc. All these visual clues can help comprehension

• Video represents a positive exploitation of technology
• Teenagers, in particular, have a positive attitude towards television and video. It is seen as being 'modern' compared to books

Drawbacks
There are however a couple of potential pitfalls that teachers should watch out for.

• Passivity
  Children are used to passively watching TV at home on the sofa. Teachers should try to avoid learners 'switching off' in class when the video is switched on by providing stimulating activities where the child can interact with and learn from the video.

• Parents
  This is linked to the above. Some parents may get annoyed when hearing their child has spent the class watching the TV 'as they can do that at home.' This can be prevented by ensuring that time actually watching the video is kept to a minimum and also by the children having something concrete to show to parents connected to the video: a worksheet, picture etc.

Role of video
Once the decision has been made to use a video in class, thought should be given as to what purpose the video is being used for i.e. the role of the video. The way the video is used and the materials prepared for use with the video will depend on the role the video is to take. Below are four possible roles for video. ( Adapted from Willis' 6 roles for video 1983: 45)

• Developing listening skills
  Listening for global understanding, listening for detail.

• To provide information
  To provide content relevant to students' needs and interests.

• Presenting or reinforcing language
  Grammar, vocabulary, functions.

• Stimulating language production
  Video used as a basis for discussion, a model for learners to follow, a visual aid.

A scheme of work using a video sequence may, however, encompass more than 1 of these roles. Learners may watch a video to find out information about, for example, a famous person. The same lesson may also include work on developing listening skills to enable learners to extract the relevant information. It could then could be used to develop vocabulary on the topic of 'lives'.

Criteria for selecting video
When selecting an authentic video for use in the classroom certain general criteria should be kept in mind.

• Watchability
  Is the video interesting? Would a young native speaker want to watch this video?

• Completeness
  Tomalin (1991: 50) 'The ideal video clip…… tells a complete story or section of a story'. This idea of completeness is important for young learners whose primary motivation for watching a video is enjoyment.

• Length
  The length of the clip is important, it shouldn't be too long, perhaps between 30 seconds and 10 minutes depending on the learning objective.

• Appropriateness of Content
  The content should be suitable for Young Learners. How has the video been rated; 'Universal', 'Parental Guidance', for ages '13'or '18'? Would the video be suitable for viewing in all cultures?

• Level of maturity
  Children mature very quickly so a group of 7-year-olds watching a video made for 5-year-olds would probably regard it as 'too babyish'. On the other hand using a video intended for older children with a group of younger children might lead to the children not being able to understand the concepts in the video.

• Availability of Related Materials
  Many authentic videos now come with ready made materials that can be used for language teaching (Wallace and Gromit, the 'Speak Up' series of films in Spain.) Other videos may have been adapted from books, which could be used in the classroom to support the video. (The 'Spot' series and Eric Carlyle stories such as 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'.

If, however, the video is being used for presenting language or for comprehension tasks there are further factors which should be considered when selecting a video.

• Degree of visual support
  A good idea is to choose scenes that are very visual. The more visual a video is, the easier it is to understand - as long as the pictures illustrate what is being said.

• Clarity of picture and sound
  If the video has been copied from the television it is important to make sure both the picture and sound are clear.

• Density of language
  This refers to the amount of language spoken in a particular time. Videos where the language is dense are more difficult for learners to comprehend.

• Speech delivery
  'Clarity of speech, speech rate and accents are all factors in determining how difficult a video excerpt will be for students to comprehend.' Arcario (Undated: 115)

• Language content
  'In using video to present language, an important factor to consider is the linguistic items (particular grammatical structures, language functions, or colloquial expressions) presented in the scene.' Arcario (Undated: 116)
  
  Another important factor is the amount of repetition of the language content. Authentic videos for young learners will often contain a lot of repetition. It is also useful to see if the linguistic content in the video can be linked to that of the language curriculum or the course book thus providing a way to integrate video work into the course as a whole.

• Language level
  The language level of the video should be appropriate for the level of the class without the teacher having to explain too much.

Video types

• Animation/cartoons
  Spider, Spot, Pingu, Mr Ben, Eric Carlyle stories, Wallace and Gromit series.

• Educational programmes
  TV documentaries made for children about science/nature etc, Dinosaurs series, The Blue Planet

• TV advertisements

• Music
  Programmes about musicians, video clips

• Drama

• TV series/soaps for young people (especially good for seeing life in Britain, maybe not so easy to understand!)

Further Reading

Cooper R & M Lavery & M Rinvolucri Video Oxford: OUP (1991)

Bibliography
Allan M (1985) Teaching English with Video London: Longman
Longeran J (1984) Video in Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Stempleski S & P Arcario (undated) Video in Second Language Teaching and Learning TESOL Inc
Tomalin B (undated) 'Teaching young children with video' in Stempleski S & Arcario P (eds)
Lynn Gallacher, British Council

Take from http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/video-young-learners-1      1 juni 2014 12.34