论文总字数：31235字

摘 要

在新课程纲要中，小学英语的教学目标为培养学生学习英语的兴趣。游戏教学法符合小学生生理和心理特点，是一种非常理想的培养学生兴趣的教学方法。文章在仔细分析游戏教学法优点的基础上，重点论述了游戏在小学英语课堂教学中的运用，包括游戏的选择，游戏与学习的结合，以及游戏教学的过程，旨在说明，教师作为小学生英语学习的启蒙者应合理组织游戏来培养学生对英语的兴趣。

关键词：游戏；小学英语教学；运用

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Theoretical Background 2

2.1 Psychological background 2

2.2 Linguistic background 3

3. The Advantages of Using Games in Primary School English Teaching 4

3.1 Creating a cheerful atmosphere and arousing students’ interest 4

3.2 Concentrating students’ attention and developing the four skills 5

3.3 Adding variation to a lesson and increasing motivation 6

3.4 Building up students’ confidence in real communication 7

4. Applying Games in Classroom Teaching 7

4.1 Choosing appropriate games 8

4.2 Integrating Games into Learning 9

4.3 Procedures of using games 10

4.4 Case study of using games in teaching 11

5. Conclusion 12

Works Cited 14

1. Introduction

With the development of the society and the frequent use of English in daily life, English has become one of the basic skill requirements for people in the 21st century. Since the year of 2001, English has become a compulsory subject in the 3^rd Grade of elementary school. In recent years, there has been a trend of learning English from a much younger age, and many schools even provide English class for 1^st Grade and 2^nd Grade students. Many children even have English lessons before they go to school. Teaching English to young students in primary school is very different from teaching adults. When compared to adults, children are lack of motivation and can’t concentrate for a long time. By analyzing the characteristics of students in primary school, the traditional teacher-oriented rote-memorization teaching style is not suitable for the young learners today. So, many advanced teaching methods have been put forward, such as situational teaching method, communicative teaching method, task-based language teaching method and game teaching method.

As for the content of teaching English in primary school, some people regard it as to acquire pronunciation, memorize basic vocabulary, develop learning skills and communicate with others in English. However, these are not true in this new era, when students’ motivation and interest can never be neglected at the beginning stage of English learning. In the National English Curriculum(2001), the task for English curriculum is described as to “arouse the students’ interest in English learning and develop the positive attitude so as to build the confidence in English learning.” As we all know, interest is the best teacher for pupils to learn a foreign language. So, primary school English teachers shoulder great responsibility of arousing students’ interest before they can go further positively and actively towards their advanced learning. One effective way to arouse students’ interest is game. Games have been widely used in some English training institutes such as New Oriental Teaching Center and so on but they haven’ t been adopted by teachers in primary school. One of the main reasons of applying games in teaching is that the exam-oriented education limits both teachers’ and students’ creativity

However, the good news is that since the publication of the National English Curriculum, more teachers and educationists have realized this problem and are trying to make some changes. The new edition of English book of Yilin in 2013 pays much more attention to the importance of games in English teaching. In this new edition of Yilin, a unit is divided into 7 parts: Story time, Fun time, Cartoon time, Rhyme time/Song time, Letter time/Sound time, Checkout time, Ticking time. Among these 7 parts, games are taken into consideration in Fun time. In this part, some interesting games are designed to be played in class with teacher’s decent organization.

In this thesis, the author will first explore the theoretical background of English game teaching, including psychological background and linguistic background. In the second part, the author will analyze the advantages of using game in teaching English. In the third part, the thesis will focus on the application of games in primary school English class, which includes choosing appropriate games, integrating games into learning, and the procedures of using games and a case study of using games in teaching. Teacher as the torchbearer should organize games rationally in order to develop students’ learning interest in English.

2. Theoretical Background

2.1 Psychological background

Students in primary school have limited abstract thinking ability, and their level of thinking is intuitive and based on appearances. So, games can be easily accepted by students and will provide students with an opportunity for communication and to use the target language during the game playing.

People also find it difficult for students in primary school to focus on one thing for a long time. A survey (Zhao Chengfu, 2002:202) shows that in a well organized atmosphere, children’s attention last for different time: around age 5 to 7, their attention span is 10 to 15 minutes; age between 7 and 10 their attention span is 20 minutes; age between 10 and 12 lasts for about 25 minutes; and the attention span of those older than 12 can reach to 30 minutes.

The great educationist says “Children like playing by nature and games are their lives. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” (Chen Heqin,1980:46) However, from the perspective of English teaching, students are required to master basic English knowledge and the skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing to improve their comprehensive language competence. Therefore, teachers will unavoidably adopt rote-memorization and mechanical training in class, which will destroy students’ learning interests and enthusiasm. According to the study of children psychology, students in primary school are active, curious and eager to show themselves. Game is an excellent way to integrate learning with playing, to let students practice the learnt knowledge in games.

The cultivation of both intelligence factor and non-intelligence factor should be attached with great importance in English teaching. The intelligence factors such as concentration, observation, memory etc. and the non-intelligence factors such as intellectual curiosity，interest and motivation should be attached with equal importance. According to J.S.Bruner (1960), the motivation can be divided into intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. When students can get some rewards in games, their extrinsic motivation will be stimulated. However, if the teacher makes the knowledge easy and fun to learn through games, students will become interested in learning and their intrinsic motivation will also be stimulated.

2.2 Linguistic background

According to the input hypothesis and affective filter hypothesis put forward by Stephen Krashen, the process of second language acquisition is influenced by positive factors and negative factors. (Stephen Krashen,1985:18)The input hypothesis states that learners progress in their knowledge of the language when the language input is slightly more advanced than their current level. Krashen called this level of input “i 1”, where “i” is the language input and “ 1” is the next stage of language acquisition. S.Krashen writes: “a necessary (but not sufficient) condition to move from stage “i” to stage “i 1” is that the acquired understand input that contains “i 1”, where “understand” means that the acquirer is focused on the meaning and not he form of the message.”(S.Krashen, 1982:21)

　　Moreover, the affective filter hypothesis states that learners" ability to acquire language is constrained if they are experiencing negative emotions such as fear or embarrassment. At such times the affective filter is said to be “up”. The effective teacher is one who can provide input and help make it comprehensible in a low anxiety situation. Games are fun. This characteristic provides an enjoyable and relaxing atmosphere, learners learn quickest in such an atmosphere．If we teach English with the help of various games, the students learn something while playing with their fellows. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to tell the difference between “study” and “play”. The learners do not feel any pressure of learning and all of them are willing to participate．

3. The Advantages of Using Games in Primary School English Teaching

In traditional English class, teachers pay more attention to rote-memorization and mechanical training, but ignore students’ learning interests. Some people think that learning is an extremely serious thing and having fun in class is not suitable. However, with the deepening of the research of children’s psychology, more advantages of having fun in class emerge. Using games in primary English teaching can not only bring the class lots of fun but also promote students’ learning efficiency. In this part, the writer will share with you some of the advantages that she found through analyzing children’s psychology and from her own teaching experience in Nan Jing Chaha’er Road primary school.

3.1 Creating a cheerful atmosphere and arousing students’ interest

The using of games is helpful to create a cheerful and relaxing atmosphere for language acquisition. A cheerful and relaxing atmosphere can help students alleviate some anxiety and get the best results. However, to create a democratic, light, friendly and harmonious atmosphere cannot be achieved at once. This enjoying atmosphere emerges from long-term bilateral practical activities between teaching and learning that involve mutual respect, mutual exchange and mutual understanding.

As is known to all, learning interest is the best teacher for students, especially for students in primary school. In order to teach effectively, teachers must first analyze students’ psychological and physiological characteristics. Students in primary school are active, curious and eager to show themselves. Games are competitive, and people who take part in it will think actively and respond quickly. Games can also help students overcome the psychological barriers of shyness and timidity and keep their mind and body in an enjoyable condition. At the same time, reasonable game rules, appropriate rewards and punishments can foster students’ sense of organization and discipline.

From the author’s own experience, using games can significantly activate the classroom atmosphere and thus to arouse student’s enthusiasm to learn English. She can obviously feel the differences between using games and not using games in class from students’ reaction. When she teaches the four words: pen, crayon, ruler, rubber in class 1, grade 1, she just presents the pictures of these four words and teach the students how to read. Most of the students are not willing to learn, so they talk with others or do something else and some of them even feel sleepy. As a result, the teaching efficiency is very low. So, when she teaches the same four words in class 2, she adopts a guessing game. She puts the pencil case behind herself, and let students guess what behind her. The students have learned the word pencil case last term, so it is also a revision. Then, the guessing continues, students are required to guess what is in the pencil case. In this way, the new words are presented in a nature way. When using this game to teach the words, students are active and willing to learn. Therefore, the learning efficiency is much higher and students are much happier.

3.2 Concentrating students’ attention and developing the four skills

Game is not only an effective means to arouse the students’ interest in learning; it can also make them all fully concentrated on what they are doing. Students are interested in playing games, even a very simple game can concentrate their attention effectively comparing with teaching the new contents directly. Games are always competitive, so students will concentrate on how to win the game. At the same time, teachers can get the best result of teaching. There are various kinds of teaching games and we can also use the multimedia to create more interesting games. Teachers can use different games every time. Then the students will be full of expectation and looking forward to the next lesson. While playing games, students’ abilities of comprehension, analysis, judgment, imagination and their skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing will be developed. When playing games, they have to listen to teacher’s instructions, cooperate with their classmates, talk with their partners; sometimes it also requires some writing or note-taking to prepare for the game. At the same time, it requires a quick mind, flexibility and creativity. For instance, “What’s missing”, “Magic eyes”, role playing and rhyme composing games can develop students’ listening, reading, speaking and writing skills at the same time.

3.3 Adding variation to a lesson and increasing motivation

The teaching contents cannot be changed while the way of teaching and the activities teachers adopted in class can be changed. As a teacher, to make the class shine with vitality he needs to add variation to the lessons. More importantly, he has to adopt different kinds of games and create proper activities according to the characteristics of our students to make the complex, boring learning material easier and more interesting to learn. For many children between seven and twelve years old, the learning of knowledge will not be the key motivational factor. However, games can provide this incentive and bring the target language to life. The activities in a game get students’ brains working, make them use the target language to communicate and get information, promote group working, and motivate students in learning. At that time, students who are shy are involved in the competitive and cooperative games, forgetting their shyness and the feeling of fear.

3.4 Building up students’ confidence in real communication

Confidence is an indispensible factor in learning. Lack of confidence will lead to timidity and scariness and will become the obstacle for students to take part in the games. Most students have studied English since primary school, so it’s important to cultivate students’ interests in learning English and give them more chances to use the language, to build up their confidences and to make them believe in themselves. Therefore, teachers should use more positive evaluation in class. Since game is always competitive, teacher should pay special attention to those who lose the game and help them to find out the reason, give them another chance to win. In this way, students will not lose their confidence and interest in learning. Also, playing games may develop students’ sense of communication in English. In groups or in pairs, they are more willing to ask questions, discuss with their partners and think creatively about how to use English to achieve the goal. The competition in the games gives students a natural opportunity to work together and communicate in English with each other.

4. Applying Games in Classroom Teaching

The discussion above makes it evident that game has lots of advantages and is an effective way to teach English in primary school. In this section, the way of applying games in primary school English teaching will be explored. All theory without the support of practice is pale and feeble. Therefore, in this section the author will make full use of her teaching practice to support the theories.

4.1 Choosing appropriate games

There are many language games. So teachers have lots of choices. To choose appropriate games for different purposes, teachers must take many factors into account and follow these principles.

Firstly, teachers should take students’ characteristics into account: whether they are old or young, shy or outgoing, and highly motivated to learn or not. Therefore, analyzing students’ characteristics and language basis should be the first step of choosing appropriate games.

Secondly, the game must have a clear goal. Games serve for the teaching and must be closely related to the teaching contents. When designing a game, teachers must take into account the key points and difficult points. For example, when the author teaches the words about colors, she designs a game of “wheel of fortune”. The wheel has ten different colors on it, before she turns the wheel she asks the students to guess which color it will be. Then students who guess right will get the gift behind the color. In this way, students can make use of the words of colors by themselves naturally. This game has a clear purpose that is to help students master and review the word of colors at the same time; it can arouse students’ interests and may encourage more of them to join in the game.

Thirdly, the game must be enlightening. Language games can help with the teaching of new knowledge, the consolidation of the learnt knowledge and the activation of learning atmosphere. At the same time, teachers should pay attention to student’s development of intelligence and cultivation of ability. Therefore, teachers can design some useful and interesting games. Guessing game is one of these games. When the author teaches the story time of 4B unit3 My day, which is talking about time. First, the author draws a big circle on the blackboard and let students guess what is it. They may guess it is an apple, a sun, a cake etc. Then she will add the number one to twelve on it. So, they can easily guess it is a clock. After that, she will introduce the topic of time using this clock. This kind of guessing game can make students use their imagination, and use what they have learned to express their thoughts. Students in primary school like this kind of game, teachers can also add different contents to this game, give this normal fashion game a new life to make our English class shine with vitality.

Fourthly, games should diversify in forms. The author has mentioned that guessing game is a good activity to arouse students’ interests, connect teaching contents and develop students’ all kinds of abilities. However, teachers cannot just play guessing game in every lesson. The form of the game must be diversified; otherwise, students will have nothing to expect, they will know what will happen next, and lose interests in the game. Therefore, as a teacher we need to continuously learn from others, and create more interesting games.

At last, flexibility is also indispensable during game playing in class. Flexibility means carrying out games in class timely and moderately. Teachers as the guide of the class need to adjust the classroom climate and grasp the rhyme of the class and deal with the relationship between the teaching contents and the game appropriately. In a word, teachers should fully recognize the principles of choosing appropriate games and be able to control the game.

4.2 Integrating Games into Learning

As a teacher we should always bear in mind that a game for a game’s sake is of no use. Here, the author will present some typical types of games of different kinds. Some of these games are created by herself in her own teaching in Chaha’er Road Primary school, some of the games are from the teaching and research activities and some are from the paper or magazine that she read.

Firstly, it is about the vocabulary and phrase games. Words and phrases are the basis of language study. It is very common that many teachers regard the teaching of words and phrases as drills and dictations. However, the teaching and learning of words and phrases can be great fun. Here are some games can be used in teaching words and phrases. The first one is “What’s missing”. This game can be use both in the presenting of the new words and the reviewing the learned words. In this game, some words will be present on the blackboard or on the screen and then the teacher will give the students ten to twenty seconds to remember them. After that, the teacher will ask the students to close their eyes and at the same time remove one or some of the words. Then, eyes open and let students find the missing word and say it out aloud. The second one is a game of phrases: “Brain storm”. This game can also be used in presenting and reviewing. Teachers will first introduce a topic and let students to discuss in groups to say more phrases about this topic. This game can arouse the collective wisdom, stimulate learners" creativity and inspiration and bring their initiatives into full play.

Secondly, it is the game for listening and speaking. Listening and speaking are the absorption and production of learning a language. They are also the key points of using the language to get information and communicate with others. Games of this type are various, and in this paper the author will take two of them as examples that are “Simon says” and “Role playing”. In the game of “Simon says”, students should only obey the commands if the teacher say each sentences begin with Simon says. If the teacher omits the preface “Simon says”, student who obeys the command can no longer participate in the game. The last student who remains in the game is the winner. At the same time it can help the teacher to check whether the students have mastered the target phrases or sentences, and can understand them through listening and respond quickly. The game of “Role playing” is an activity focuses on acting out a story or a dialogue with their partners. When playing this game, students have to prepare in groups, during the preparation, students can communicate with others using the target language, and their sense of cooperation will also be cultivated. This game gives students an opportunity to show themselves in front of the class. At the same time it can help them overcome the feeling of timidity and nervousness and use the language naturally in daily life.

4.3 Procedures of using games

The new syllabus advocates teaching English through games and make English classes fun and easy to learn. Some people may think the advantages of game playing are reasonable, but they are still confused about the function of game in students’ learning and how to make full use of the game. Games play different roles at different stages of a lesson.

1. Presentation. Before playing the game, teachers should first explain the rules clearly. However, students in primary school have limited English background knowledge, so to explain the rules of the game is a little difficult by saying to them. Therefore, it is better for teachers to explain the rules by making a good model.

2) Controlled practice. After presenting the rules by making a good example, teachers can practise the game in the class to make sure that all the students are clear about the rules and the procedure of the game.

3) Communicative practice. After the controlled practice, teachers can give students more space to communicate with their classmates in English. In this way, students can practice saying in a relaxed atmosphere and elicit more active thinking.

4) Appropriate feedback and evaluation. During the game playing, appropriate feedback and evaluation are indispensable. One common evaluation is to give the person or the group that wins some gifts as praises. This kind of evaluation can build up students confidences and arouse their interests in learning. However, when the teacher gives praise to those who win by clapping hands or giving some gifts, students can only feel happy, confident and proud. However, they cannot have a clear concept of why they can win, at what aspects that they behave well. So, I think it would be better if the teacher can use one or two simple sentences to conclude the outstanding features of the winning person or group. Sometime, teachers can also let other students to say something about the good points that we have to learn from the winning person or group. Only when the students know why they win or lose this time can they be aware of the direction of effort.

4.4 Case study of using games in teaching

In this part, the author will use a teaching plan to illustrate the procedures of using games and to prove the advantages of games.

1. Teaching content: 3B Unit 5 How old are you? Fun time.
2. Teaching aims:

(1) To enable students to read, recognize, and be familiar with the number from one to ten

(2) To use games to arouse students interest in learning English and build up students’ confidence in learning English

(3) To increase the communication between students

3. Teaching key points and difficult points

(1) To enable students to read, recognize, and be familiar with the number from one to ten

(2) To use games to arouse students interest in learning English and build up students’ confidence in learning English

4. Teaching aids: number cards, PPT

5. Teaching procedures

Step1 Warming up

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