What Benefits do Communication Games in the Classroom Offer?
There are a variety of things a teacher can do in a classroom to successfully increase student participation, help learn new vocabulary, breaking the ice with the students, getting to know one another, and so much more. Looking at an ESA methodology model, the activate stage is the stage that usually involves students using any or all of the language they currently know. This is also the stage where the activities can vary from either doing role-plays, debates, story writing, and communication games. All of the activities that were just mentioned have their benefits when used in a classroom but we will be focusing specifically on communication games. There are so many games that can be played in a classroom such as twenty questions, hangman, clue, jeopardy, I spy, word linking, and the list goes on. All of these games can be adapted to help teach the English language.
This post was written by our TEFL certification graduate John C. Please note that this blog post might not necessarily represent the beliefs or opinions of ITTT.
Adapting Games to Language Points
Games are popular among all age groups and therefore should be regarded as an integral part of a lesson. When closely examining the use of games in the classroom, we can see that classroom games can be adapted to language teaching. This means that while the students are playing communication games, they are boosting their knowledge of spelling, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. For example, playing twenty questions can help us with pronunciation and vocabulary while playing word linking can help us with pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Games are an activity that has a set of rules, goals, and an element of fun. Usually, students enjoy this because this allows the students to work together towards a common goal whether it be to answer a set of questions the fastest or who can answer or respond to the most questions while enjoying themselves. Communication games can be used as a warmer way to help get the students warmed up and to start thinking about or speaking English as much as possible before getting into the study phase of a lesson. It helps engage the student and increases their talking time and student to student interaction.
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Practical Skills
A huge benefit that communication games offer is that it allows the students to practice particular language points. By allowing the learners to be creative with the English language they already know of and combining it with what they recently learned, this grants the instructor an opportunity to take notes of any errors or difficulties the students may have and allows them to give feedback to the students after the game. Another benefit that communication games offer is that it helps arouse the student's interest. If students are more involved and interested, they would find the lesson more refreshing and fun thus leading to a more enjoyable learning environment. Not only that but playing communication games help keep both the students and the instructor fresh and stimulated because games give a chance to change the current pace of the class by making it not ordinary or boring. It also grants the learners a huge motivational boost to participate because games are always meant to be fun for the learners and less stressful since there is no punishment for being incorrect.
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There are so many benefits of playing communication games in a classroom that positively impact both teachers and students therefore it is crucial to add a communication game into your daily lesson plan if possible. Going over some of the main key points as to how communication games are so beneficial, we can conclude that playing games in class help teach spelling, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. It gives a huge boost in motivation to help all students participate thus giving the instructor the chance to see how the class is doing currently and giving feedback after the game if some mistakes or errors were consistent. Games can help change the current flow of a classroom lesson and boost the learner's interest in the current topic. The number of games that can be played in a classroom environment and the number of benefits that are gained from playing those language games is endless. So when in the process of making a daily lesson plan, do not ever forget to add in a communication game for your students to enjoy because games do help the learning process.
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