THEME 18 GAMES

FUNCIONES DEL JUEGO Y DE LA CREATIVIDAD EN EL APRENDIZAJE

DE LAS LENGUAS EXTRANJERAS.
DEFINICIÓN Y TIPOLOGÍA DE JUEGOS PARA EL APRENDIZAJE DEL
PERFECCIONAMIENTO LINGÜÍSTICO.
EL JUEGO COMO TÉCNICA LÚDICO-CREATIVA DE ACCESO A LA
COMPETENCIA COMUNICATIVA DE LA LENGUA EXTRANJERA.

I. FUNCTIONS OF GAMES AND CREATIVITY IN FOREIGN

LANGUAGE LEARNING.
o Distinction game & play
o Creativity
o Creativity and games (matched)
o Function of games
1. Formative
2. Social
3. Cooperation
4. Cultural
o (Limitations: environmental, social, personality)
o Advantages

II. DEFINITION AND TYPE OF GAMES FOR LANGUAGE

LEARNING AND PROFICIENCY
o Definition (natural enjoyable, spontaneous, pure activity)
o Classification of games
- Attending to the purpose: linguistic game /
communicative game
- degree of cooperation: cooperative, competitive
and cooperative and competitive games
- technique: guessing games, searching, matching,
exchanging.
- Grouping: individual, pairs, team, whole class
cooperation.
- Role

III. GAMES AS PLAY AND CREATIVE TECHNIQUES TO ACHIEVE

FOREIGN LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE
o Communicative learning theory
o Sub-competences
o Other basic competences
o (Written games)
o (Oral games)

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 THEME 18 GAMES

INTRODUCTION

The actual ways of enjoying such as videogames or the competition games

don’t show children the values or the necessary techniques to solve
problems. The conflict between them and their electrical games don’t
require any kind of communication. The game is always right and children
can finish with the problem just pressing the off and on bottom.
Children need to learn ways of communication more productive, more
realistic and more affective to be happy adults in the future.

Games are essential for a child’s development. Children need to play in

order to develop as human beings. Any activity they carry out is a game for
them.
Our oldest students may think that games are infantile but it is just an
excuse because they like them and prefer playing a game than developing
other activities. Games are one of the most efficient techniques in the
foreign language learning.

At this theme, we are going to show the main characteristics of games and
how to use them in order to get some educational purposes mostly related
to foreign language teaching.

So, let’s start showing the relationship between games and creativity and
their functions in the English classroom.

I. FUNCTIONS OF GAMES AND CREATIVITY IN

FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING.

First of all, it is necessary to make a distinction between play and game:

A game consists of playing governed by rules. For example, kicking a ball is
a play but adding rules about how and where you can kick the ball turns this
play into a game. Therefore, a game is an activity carried out by
cooperation and competing decision makers to achieve a goal.

Creativity is children’s natural way of thinking and it can be the ability to

conceive new ideas and to see new relationships between things.

Games involve creativity because of the unpredictable aspect of games

which need of creativity to be solved. There is no play without creativity.

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 THEME 18 GAMES

Games are creativity are absolutely matched because games are the natural
environment where creativity thinking lives, and without a creative attitude
would be impossible to develop any kind of game.

The main FUNCTION OF GAMES is to encourage creative thinking and

imagination. But there are others:

1. FORMATIVE ASPECT: Games help students to develop their

personality. When children play they learn because they get new
experiences, because they have the opportunity to do it right or
wrong, because they can apply their knowledge, because they can
solve problems. They contribute to an atmosphere of healthy
competition and provide a place for natural language in a non-
stressed situation.

2. SOCIAL ASPECT: Games help to shape a person socially, every

student has to contribute in some way when is playing a game, and
games must depend on pupil’s participation. Students must follow
some rules and respect them. They involve equal participation from
both: slow and fast students. Through games we can also help to
overcome their shyness.

3. CULTURAL ASPECT: Some games can teach students about other

cultures and their different aspects and also can show pupils their
proximity with other cultures when they play games. Example:
“canicas” in Spain

4. PRACTICAL ASPECTS: Games are one of the most successful tool

to get pupil’s involvement in activities that promote a great variety
of learning situations.
Through games students acquire language proficiency because they
focus attention on specific structures, grammatical patterns and
vocabulary items.
They promote moments of relaxation after prolonged deskwork.
Games can functions as reinforcement, review and enrichment.
They can be used in any language situation and with any skill area.
Games provide immediate feedback for the teacher and, finally, they
ensure maximum students participation.

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 THEME 18 GAMES

(Limitations)
All children are born creative, they need to explore, investigate, and
discover new things but this capacity is usually limited by:
a. Environmental factors: physical structure of the classroom
b. Social values: a creative child is usually nor rewarded in class
c. Personality: the attitude towards oneself affects the creative
process.

However, all these limitations can be minimised with the careful planning
carried out by the teacher.

GAME’S ADVANTAGES

Brewster and Ellis suggested a list of some of the advantages of using

games, songs, rhymes, role-plays and so on, for language learning purposes:

1) Variety is added to the rage of learning situations.

2) The pace of the lesson can be changed into a more motivational
situation for children.
3) More formal teaching can be “lightened” , thus reviewing pupil’s
energy.
4) Hidden practice of specific
5) Listening skills, attention span and concentration are improved
6) Pupil’s participation is encouraged
7) Increasing pupil-pupil communication
8) Any distance between teacher and pupils
9) Through games, teacher can identify problems and areas of
weakness.

Let’s see now the different kind of games involved in the teaching of
foreign languages.

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 THEME 18 GAMES

II. DEFINITION AND TYPE OF GAMES FOR

LANGUAGE LEARNING AND PROFICIENCY

The game is a natural activity in children: it’s enjoyable, spontaneous

and a pure activity.

It is natural because it appears in all children as a necessity of their own

human condition; It is enjoyable because children show a clear interest for
them and also it involves fun; It is spontaneous because it is not promote
by any external factors and arises by itself to the extent that we say that
the child is sick when he is not playing; and finally it’s pure because games
are played just for pleasure.

When pupils play games they do it just for pleasure; teachers are who must
try to use this amusing tool for educational purposes and, we are who make
the classification of games taking into account these educational goals:

1. PURPOSE
2. DEGREE OF COOPERATION
3. TECHNIQUE
4. TYPE OF GROUP
5. MEDIUM
6. LEARNER AND TEACHER’S ROLE

1. According to the PURPOSE:

o Correction or linguistic games:
These games depend upon players producing correct language. It is
focused on accuracy. Thorough these kind of games we practice
grammar conventions, structures and vocabulary. It is full of
repetitions.

These types of games limit students’ creativity because it does not

promote fluency language. For example: “Simon says”.
However, sometimes they are useful because it helps to fix
memorization, repetitions, etc.

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 THEME 18 GAMES

o Communicative games:
These games focus on the overall message of the players. The
content is much more important than the form. However, it could
be thought that communicative games don’t improve accuracy but
the range of language needed can be limited so that students are
repeating structures many times.

This type of game often relies on an information gap. Students can

measure their own success by the speed and efficiency with which
they reach the objectives of the game. In a communication game
there is always more than one way to reach the objective.

The two types of games are not in conflict. Each one has its place on a
teaching programme. Both type of games focus on acquiring proficiency but,
we, as teachers know that there are a wide number of games which can be
played in an integrated way with the purpose of proficiency.

2. According to the DEGREE OF

COOPERATION
There are many games which involve competition but there are others in
which cooperation is the main thing. In other games, we can find both,
cooperation within a team and competition against another team. In
competitive games our pupils race to be the first to reach the goal while in
cooperative they must work together towards a common objective.

Generally speaking, we can say that cooperative games are better than
competitive but we are sometimes pushed to use competitive games since
they are highly motivating with younger students who love competition. So
we have to bear in mind that competing groups must be equally balanced, so
none of them can always win.

3. According to the TECHNIQUE

Games use a great variety of different techniques and procedures in order
to maintain the motivation on. Some of these techniques are:
a. Guessing
b. Searching
c. Matching
d. Simulation
e. Exchanging and collecting
f. Puzzle solving
g. Role play

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 THEME 18 GAMES

Later we will see some examples of games which use these techniques.
4. According to the TYPE OF GROUP
- Individual
- Pair games
- Team games
- Whole class games
It is better for students to keep the same group throughout the year, they
will have a stronger sense of team.

5. According to the MEDIUM

There are games which are entirely oral or written. Activities in the
classroom must foster both, the written and the oral skills.
At the beginning it is difficult to introduce and make use of written games,
but some simple written games aiming that accuracy when writing are the
most convenient, such as crosswords. Other written games seem to be more
suitable for older learners. However, games provide a reason to write which
must be developed from the beginning.
On the other hand, oral games can serve as icebreakers and provide a
necessary step between controlled to free conversation.

6. According to the LEARNER AND

TEACHER’S ROLE

Our pupils must always be participants while the teacher’s role varies
enormously. In fact, one of the aims of games is to reduce distance
between the teacher and students.

III. GAMES AS PLAY AND CREATIVE TECHNIQUES TO

ACHIEVE FOREING LANGUAGE COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE

The Communicative learning theory says that the goal of language teaching
is communication and that communication is also the mean to that end, that
is to say, the most effective way of learning a new language is by using it to
communicate, using the four linguistic skills.

The communicative competence model recognizes two important factors on

teaching learning process: the declarative and procedural knowledge.

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 THEME 18 GAMES

We can relate these two concepts to notions and functions into a

functional-notional syllabus: notions are declarative knowledge that is
theoretical concepts. On the other hand, functions are the situations
where we have to put into practice that declarative knowledge.

Communicative competence has four main sub-competences, which deal

with all the different aspects that appear in language orally and written:

1. Grammatical competence: is the capacity to know and put in practice

the rules of use of a language. This competence focuses directly on
the knowledge and skill required to understand and express
accurately.
We can use linguistic games.
2. Sociolinguistic competence focuses on sociocultural rules of use and
rules of discourse. It is concerned with the proper use of language
according to the context which depend on contextual factors
( status of participants, purposes of interactions, convention, etc)
3. Discourse competence focus on how to combine grammatical forms
and meaning to achieve an unified spoken or written discourse. It
main elements are cohesion and coherence.
We can use Chinese whispers
4. Strategic competence, says that verbal and non-verbal
communication strategies may be called into action.
We can use mime games

In addition, by playing games we are contributing to develop the

communicative competence and other basic competences such as:

- Linguistic communication competence. Rhythm games

contribute to the development of this basic competence as well as
linguistic games such as “top and tail”.
- Learning to learn competence. When students play
spelling games they are developing a sill that can be applied to other
situations and languages.
- Autonomy and personal initiative. TPR games
contribute to a better knowledge of our body and physical capacities
that are some of skills required to get authonomy.
- Information processing and competition in digital.
Mostly of digital games require some knowledge of English, for instance,
“game over”

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 THEME 18 GAMES

- Social and civic competence, the own definition of

games include the respect for rules and other as the way to play, this is
a good example of this contribution.
- Although to a lesser extent, games develop the
Artistic and cultural competence because language productions contain a
cultural component. By playing finger plays or rhythm games we are
developing this competence.
- Math competence is developed when practising
numbers, sequences, and math operations. For example, when playing a
bingo.

We cannot divide games according to the communicative competence

they are used for because mostly of them are suitable for more than one,
but at the same time, we will see how games contribute to the achievement
of communicative competence rather orally as written.

GAMES TO ACHIEVE WRITTEN COMPETENCE

o Spelling games: alphabet races, spy code,

scramble words, steping stones, hangman.
o Vocabulary games: focus on repetition,
memorization. For instance, observe and remember, remember and
add, animal squares, shopping tour, the A to Z banquet, and “I spy” (I
spy with my little eye something beginning with T.. Uhhmmm! Me”
Tribunal!)
o Structures games: Yes/no questions, all the
guessing games
o Reading games: suitable for younger
students to show understanding without producing. Usually with a set
of written cards with commands in them
o Writing games: those are the most
difficult to be worked inside the English classroom, for example: the
story of your life, short story nightmare, A through Z, analogies.

GAMES TO ACHIEVE ORAL COMPETENCE

Apart from those versions of the previous ones, which can be developed
orally and written:
o Pronunciation games from isolated to sounds or words: whisper,
phonetic bingo

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o Listening games: TPR

o Role-play and dramatizations: story in a bag

CONCLUSION

Game is a powerful tool of communication and socialization. It is necessary

in child’s development and it contributes to participative attitudes,
cooperation, help, it develops the imagination, creativity, improve the
senses, the learning, help to solve problems and promote the social
interactions between individuals.

Brierley said “a child does not learn from a passive kaleidoscope of

experiences but from the outcomes of actions that he or she has
initiated”.

This phrase and a lot of research show that children were more receptive
to teaching where they had been given the opportunity to be actively
involved in the learning process. Games respond to these characteristics
and they also follow the famous principle of “I hear and I forget, I see and
I remember, I do and I understand”

We develop a great variety of knowledge and experiences in our students

by contributing to other competences and by working communicative
competence and, all these processes can be experiences and acquired by
playing games.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

o Maria Teresa Corchado, Adrian Birtwistle, and the teachers of

Lancashire College, The ELT Game: Games and Actitivities for the
teaching of English. Cáceres, 1992.
o Brierley, J. Give me a child until he is seven, 1987.
o Material del curso “ Inglés en educación infantil II” CPR Cáceres,
2000.
o Material del curso “ El papel del juego en la educación” Sindicato
Pide, 2008.

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