Teach English in ShangbAhe Zhen - Huanggang Shi

Every person loves games regardless of their age. There are various games that appeal to different age groups but why should they be important or even necessary when teaching or learning something new? There must have been a time in all our lives that we did not want to attend some of the classes or even not want to go to school. Would it make a difference if we played some games and hence enjoyed our lessons more? It certainly would help. As exciting as learning something new is , it can also be a bit of a bore sometimes because as human beings we are not always in the mood to focus. Although some of our teachers try their best to make the lesson interesting for us, we know the purpose of the activity and we try to participate but sometimes we just can not. Playing some of the games that we enjoy in our spare time during a lesson, even if their purpose was to practice what we have learnt, it would certainly make it more interesting. There has to be interesting games and activities during the classes for young learners already, because their attention spans are shorter, but what about adults? In a Business English class for instance, the adults are most likely to be serious all day and sometimes they may not be able to concentrate enough for a serious activity or sometimes it is just boring for them because it is similar to their jobs. If there are some games that they would normally enjoy, even though adapted for the lesson purposes, they will be able to concentrate back on and finish the activity with much better results. Games are not just for fun but can be used in many different ways during a lesson. For English lessons for example, they can be adapted for teaching or practice grammar structures, vocabulary purposes or even debates and vice versa. Some games can be used to prepare the students for the class like a game of hangman. It can be a wonderful way to intrigue your students and make them start the lesson with full interest. However, the preparation for the game should be done properly before the lesson begins to not cause any troubles afterwards. Games in the classroom can be a distraction too if everything is not planned properly. The groups or pairs should be thought and readied beforehand. Imagine a classroom of students that are tired already and it is obvious that they had a tough day at work, they probably will not be able to focus well during the lesson once they see the game and they might want to skip to the part with the game straight. A teacher should be able to warm them up before the game part begins because the games are usually for the activate part, which is the last phase of the lesson after the study phase, and make them feel prepared for the lesson. There has been some cases that some teachers played games for complete lessons like ninety minutes long. It should not be like this either. Games should serve a purpose which can be making a review or practicing the topics that have been covered during that lesson. Another common mistake is that some teachers decide on a game and then prepare their lessons around that game, which should be the other way around. A game should not be the center of a lesson plan or a lesson, a game should be a helpful tool for the purpose of the lesson, which may be various topics. In conclusion, like everything else games can be a useful or a dangerous tool. If it is planned well, games can be a fun and helpful tool to draw attention to begin or end the lesson. Games are a way to relieve stress and after a hard day of work, adults deserve this small reward as much as the young learners. It does not have to be every lesson, but once in a while a nice game could serve well.