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Teaching can become at times frustrating for both yourself and your students, therefore I believe that the usage of games in the classroom can be of great benefit to yourself and also to your students. Games can be a great way to engage with your students and create a more relaxed and calm environment. This being said different games have varying ways of teaching specific attributes of the learning. Depending on the situation and the developmental level of students particular games can be used to stimulate grammar, pronunciation, spelling as well as sentence structure. Therefore it is of upmost importance to understand and have some knowledge of your students in that teaching younger learners may or may not be the same as teaching adults or those learning primarily English speaking for business. Therefore I will try to give specific examples of how some different games can be used such as hangman, Pictionary and even role playing games. Although I believe games to be a useful tool it should not be the primary method of teaching. Having had very little teaching experience much of the information comes directly from the course material provided, however I will adapt this information as to how I would approach different situations. I believe that hangman itself could be used on all levels of development from elementary to advanced. Hangman is a very a simple and straight forward game which has the ability to teach both spelling and pronunciation in which the drilling technique could be utilized. This particular game has not only the ability to learn or understand new words but also how the alphabet is structured. However I do believe hangman or the terminology of the word may not be appropriate in some cultures, although this is not mentioned in the course material. Another game which I believe could be of great use would be Pictionary, once again it has the ability to enhance both vocabulary and pronunciation and can easily involve an entire group of students. It is also light hearted and often humorous once again engaging the entire class or by just simply breaking up a more complicated study session. In my opinion Pictionary would be better suited for a younger class of students especially if the attention span of the group starts to dwindle. The usage of role playing games which would need to be thoroughly prepared would be a great way of having students interacting with one another and begin thinking and communicating in English. A role playing game would obviously need to meet the general needs of all the students involved or the class could be divided into smaller groups depending on the specific requirement of the student. Understanding of the culture in this situation would be of extreme importance as what may be appropriate in one country may be extremely offensive in another. Role playing could be serious or fun depending on the group of individuals and the primary purpose of the lesson. When teaching a group of business learners it would more often less likely to be a game. In conclusion my belief is that the usage of games can be greatly beneficial. Almost any game can be used if adapted correctly. It is also essential that the games are thoroughly prepared prior to the lesson. Games can be used when a class becomes disrupted, loses focus on the lesson at hand or to simply lighten the mood. On the other side it is essential to understand the culture and to be diligent when planning the game and lessons.
