18 Евразийский Союз Ученых (ЕСУ) #2 (47), 2018| ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ

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Сибири. 2017. № 2 (14). С. 40-46.

USING GAMES IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Umarkhanova Nigora
The Student of Namangan State University, English Philology Faculty, Philology and Language Teaching
Department. (Uzbekistan)
Fotima Nuriddinova
Senior teacher of Namangan Engineering and Construction institute, Foreign language department (Uz-
bekistan)

ABSTRACT
The research of article is emphasizing the importance of game. Because they help create friendly atmosphere,
provide students with practice in fluency, increases confidence. We have so many games for EFL classroom, but
not all of them are useful. Games should not be played only for fun. Games should help involve students and teach
how to use language. Here we explained some criteria for games and classified into groups.
Key words: game, classroom, students, atmosphere, create, activity, engage, involve.

Children have an enormous capacity for finding and have only one answer, not allowing for creativity,
and making fun. Sometimes, it is has to be said, they personal expression, or testing hypotheses. The answer
choose the most inconvenient moments to indulge it! is either right or wrong, but games can allow for multi-
They bring a spark of individuality and of drama to ple answers. They improve participation, self-esteem,
much they do. Children delight in imagination and fan- and vocabulary usage and allow the learners to see that
tasy. It is more than simply a matter of enjoyment, how- there are many ways to solve the same problem. Addi-
ever. In the primary school, children are very busing tionally, it is more like real life. For instance, most con-
making sense of the world about them. They are iden- versations start with open ended questions: “How are
tifying pattern and also deviation from that pattern. you?”, “What did you do yesterday?”, “ How can I help
They test out their version of the world through fantasy you”, and “What would you like for dinner?” As for-
and confirm how the world actually is by imagining eign language learners, it is important that they are pro-
how it might be different. In the language classroom vided with scenarios that are as realistic as possible.
this capacity for fantasy and imagination has very con- Games, if produced well, can do the same thing. Easy
structive part to play. ways to do that involve the students finishing a sen-
Language teaching should be concerned with real tence, listing words that begin with a certain letter, an-
life. But it would be a great pity if we were so con- swering open ended questions on a board game or tell-
cerned to promote reality in the classroom that we for- ing a story (Talak-Kiryk 2010).
got that reality for children includes imagination and There are a number of reasons that games deserve
fantasy. The act of fantasizing, of imagining, is very a place in the language classroom. First of all, they are
much an authentic part of being a child (Halliwell). fun, which is extremely important, because they can
Games are fun activities that promote interaction, help activate students who may have been inactive be-
thinking, learning and problem solving strategies. Of- fore, due to lack of interest. Keeping students active is
ten games have an aspect that permits the players to re- vital because teachers will never be able actually teach
duce information in a short time period. Some games students anything unless they can get them to partici-
require the players to engage in a physical activity and pate in their own learning process.
complete a mental challenge. Games allow for creativ- Second, games also play a big role in helping par-
ity, independence and higher order thinking. Usually, ticipants build relationship, and to feel equal. Playing
questions posed by the classroom teacher are fact based games in the classroom can also help create a friendly
Евразийский Союз Ученых (ЕСУ) # 2(47), 2018 | ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ 19
and positive atmosphere where seat arrangement can guage in the course of the games. Similarly, Jill Had-
differ from games, and thus cause diversity from the field (1990) defined games “an activity with rules, a
norm which can be extremely helpful in keeping an ex- goal and an element of fun”. The main reason why
citing learning environment. games are often used in language classes is that they
Third, the reason most people want to learn a lan- lower students’ stress in the classroom. In conventional
guage is to be able to use it in real situation, for example classrooms, there is a lot of stress put on students trying
when travelling. Games can be very good way to prac- to master the target language. Schultz (1988) said that
tice this skill because they can easily be used to reenact “…Stress is a major hindrance in language learning
various situations from real life and provide students proves. This process (learning language in traditional
with practice in their fluency. Also, by using games in way) is by its nature time consuming and stress provok-
the classroom the teacher is giving his students a bigger ing… raise the stress level to a point at which it inter-
role, and he himself is stepping out of the frontline feres with students attention and efficient and under-
which is a positive thing because it allows students to mines motivation. … One method has been developed
take on more responsibility. Also that allows students to make students forget that they are in class… relax
to do more on their own, and that can very well result students by engaging them in stress-reducing task
in an increase in their confidence level (Langran & Pur- (games)”. There is a high level of stress in the class-
cell 1994). room because students have to face unfamiliar or un-
Fourth, language students need to be exposed to known grammatical structures, words, texts and so
the language in a variety of situations, which is a need forth. Therefore students often feel uncomfortable and
games can fulfill. Language students also need to be insecure in class, which inevitably affects their ability
ready to take on the experience, keeping their minds to learn. As a result, games can help lower their anxiety,
open and being willing participants again, games make make them feel comfortable, and want to learn more. It
this possible. is believed that when students play games, they relax
Fifth, language students need to be emotionally in- and have fun. Teachers need to consider which games
volved, meaning they need to feel something while they to use, when to use them, how to link them up with the
are exposed to the language. Strong emotions, such as syllabus, text book or programmed, and how, more spe-
happiness, excitement, amusement and suspense allow cifically, different games will benefit students in differ-
students to feel positively about their learning situation ent ways. The key to successful language game is that
and are therefore likely to have a positive effect on lan- the rules are clear, the ultimate goal is well defined and
guage learning. the game must be fun (Mania Maoyad 2012).
Sixth, games are good for shy students and stu- Games that are used in teaching can be divided
dents with low confidence, and that applies specifically into categories in many different ways. One way of di-
when playing takes place in smaller groups because viding educational games is by categorizing them into
then they get a chance to speak in front of fewer audi- groups depending on their model. Ingvar Sigurgeirsson
ence instead of having to express themselves in front of (1996) has divided games into the following categories:
the whole class. Also it is sometimes easier to open up games for dividing larger groups into smaller groups,
and forget the shyness when playing a game because introduction-games, group games, physical games,
the atmosphere is not as serious and more emphasis is scavenger hunt games, educational games, theoretical
put on fluency rather than grammatical correctness expression games, drawing-and coloring games, educa-
(Langran & Purcell 1994). tional card games, word games, story games and ques-
Seventh, games can be a good strategy when tion games.
teaching various subjects because they are very likely 1. Games for dividing larger groups into smaller
to spark interest amongst students. They can be used groups. Within the group: games for dividing larger
with students of all ages, and when they are used with group into smaller groups, there are games that can be
other teaching methods they create diversity which is used prior to some group activity in order to divide the
ideal for school work (Ingvar Sigurgeirsson 1999). A whole group into smaller group. A great game that fits
study that was undertaken in Iceland in 2006 shows into this category is the game “ Group dividing by mim-
clearly the need for diversity in school. Many partici- ing” and it goes like this: the teacher has prepared notes
pants in that study complained about the lack of diver- with a certain role written on them. If the teacher wants
sity, and that they wanted more of it in order for their to have 4 students in a group he has made 4 notes of
learning to become more fun and progressive in their each role, for example 4 notes that say “teacher” or
school (Lovisa, Laufey & Samuel 2006). “clown”. The second step is to give each student a note
Finally, using games in the classroom is important and remember to tell the students that they have to
because many children do not get enough opportunity make sure that nobody besides them sees their note.
to play during their free time, which can be traced to Once everybody has gotten a note then they can begin
the rapid changes in our society (Sigriður2010). acting out their roles and while they are doing so they
Language games are not activities mainly aimed to must watch the others in order to figure out who is act-
break the ice between students or to kill time. Byrne ing the same role as them. once they have figured that
(1995) gave the definition to games as a form of playing out they will have created their groups ( Ingvar Sigur-
governed by rules. They should be enjoyed and fun. geirsson 1995). An activity like this can also be very
They are not just a diversion, a break from routine ac- good because it “breaks the ice” and prepared the stu-
tivities, but a way of getting the learner to use the lan- dents for the group work.
20 Евразийский Союз Ученых (ЕСУ) #2 (47), 2018| ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ
2. Introduction games. This category might in- native language, where children are exposed to the lan-
clude games like: “Searching for people” where stu- guage for many months before starting to talk (Freeman
dents have to walk around the classroom and find stu- 2000).
dents that have for example lived on a farm, been to 5. Scavenger hunt games. Savage hunt games are
Spain or eaten Mexican food and of course they would especially fitting in the language classroom because the
have to use the target language in order to get the nec- clue can be written in the target language, which forces
essary information. Also a good game in this category the participants to read and fellow team members to lis-
is the game “Starting the names” where students sit in ten and test their understanding. Also within the scav-
a circle and one by one they introduce themselves, but enger hunt could be puzzles, which the students would
the only catch is that before saying their own name they have to solve, such as crossword puzzles, word
always have to repeat the names of the students who searches and questions. The possibilities are almost
have already introduced themselves, and as the game endless and teachers are only bound by the limits of
progresses it gets harder and harder for students to their own creativity.
memorize all the names (Ingvar Sigurgeirson 1995). In 6. Educational games. The “mail game” where
order to make this game more fitting in a language participants have to deliver “mail” and make sure it gets
classroom the teacher could ask the student to add to the right places works as an excellent example of an
something they like that starts with the same letter as educational game. For languages a good idea would be
their names, for example “my name is Anna and I love to work around a theme of a certain place, such as the
apples”. Another idea could be to have students add ad- home. The first thing the teacher has to do is to make
jectives with the name letter as their names, for exam- the envelopes and the “mail”. The envelopes should be
ple “Sigga super” or “Anna awesome” and that way it labeled with a specific genre, which in this example
teacher adjectives as well. would be “kitchen”, “bedroom”, “bathroom” etc. The
3. Group games. An example of a group game is mail should then be letters with words on them the fit
the game “Fruit basket” which emphasizes listening, into specific envelopes, for example the word “knife”
memory and reflexes, all of which are good and neces- or the word “refrigerator” would match the envelope
sary skills to possess. The rules of this game are that labeled “kitchen”. Each student should then get a cer-
participants sit in a circle and they all get a name of a tain amount of “mail” that he has to write his name on
certain fruit to “be”. One participant doesn’t have a and then got to work delivering. The first one to deliver
chair and has to stand in the middle. He then calls out a all of his mail would win if it turned out he delivered
name of a fruit, for example an orange, and then all the correctly.
students who are oranges have to stand up and switch 7. Theoretical expression games. The game
seats. The one in the middle has to try and “steal” a seat “who am I” fits perfectly into the theoretical expression
while the others are switching and if he succeeds some- category. In this game the class is usually divided into
one else will be left alone in the middle and gets the two teams and then one by one students stand in front
task of calling out the name of a new fruit (Ingvar of the whole class and act out a specific profession,
Sigurgeirson 1995). This game could easily be aug- which the teacher has given them. the teams take turns
mented to suit different or to train some other vocabu- in guessing or asking questions, but the actor can only
lary just by using other categories of words, for exam- reply to questions by answering yes or no. The scoring
ple clothes, names of relatives, or different types of can then be managed in a way that one point would be
food instead of fruits. given to a team that asks a question, which is replayed
4. Physical games. An example of a physical with a yes answer and 5 points would be given to the
games is “Walking the line” where participants have to team that figures out who the actor is playing (Ingvar
walk a line and perform various types of tasks at the Sigurgeirson 1995).
same time, for example walking backwards, or balanc- 8. Drawing and coloring games. An example of
ing a book on their heads. In order to make this game a game from the category: drawing-and coloring games
more fitting in a language classroom the teacher should can be a game called “drawing in a foreign language”.
give the instructions in the target language, for example That game is very similar to the “who am I” game from
“everybody has to walk backwards”. Another example the category above but the only differences is that the
of a physical game could be the games “Simon says”, students have to draw on the blackboard instead of act-
where someone plays Simon and gives the others or- ing, and they could be working with other types of vo-
ders, for example “Simon says jump” or “Simon says cabulary than professions, for example nouns, verbs or
clap your hands”. I categorize this game as a physical adjectives.(Sunna Vidarsdottir)
game because of the fact that the Simon’s orders are 9. Educational card games. One educational
usually physical. Activities like “Simon says” fits into card game is
a teaching method called Total Physical Response in Bingo (Ingvar Sigurgeirsson 1995) which is an excel-
which languages is taught by allowing students to ob- lent activity to use in language teaching because the
serve and take their time to understand the language be- teacher can draw words and the students only have pic-
fore having to speak it. TPR is taught to be a good tures on their bingo cards or vice versa. That way the
teaching method for learning a foreign language for two students have to understand the words to be able to
reasons. The first one is that it is thought to reduce the match it to the right picture.
stress level. Stress level of learning a language and 10. Word games. Word games can be especially
therefore making the learning more enjoyable, and the good for language teaching. Included here are cross-
second one is that it resembles the learning of children’s word puzzles and word searches where students get the
Евразийский Союз Ученых (ЕСУ) # 2(47), 2018 | ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ 21
words in their native tongue but they are hidden in the  A game should encourage students to focus on
word search and only match the crossword puzzle in the the use of language rather than on the language itself.
target language. Also it is easy asking students to use  A game should give students a chance to learn,
the target language in the game “Filling in a chart” practice, or review specific language material.
where participants have to find, for example a country, Students may wish to play games purely for fun.
a city, an animal, or a type of food (Ingvar Sigur- Teachers, however, need more convincing reasons.
geirsson 1995). Teachers need to consider which games to use, when to
11. Story games. An excellent example of a game use them, how to link them up with the syllabus, text
from the category: story games, is the game “to tell a book or programmed, and how, more specific, different
story”. The participants sit in a circle and one them gets games will benefit students in different ways. The key
the role of the story teller. The teacher whispers one to a successful language game is that the rules are clear,
word into the ear of each student and ask him or her to the ultimate goal is well defined and the game must be
remember it. Then the storyteller begins telling a story fun (Mania Moayad 2012).
and every now and then he stops and points at a students Foreign language teaching methods are improving
who then has to say the word the teacher has whispered rapidly. Teacher centered teaching methods are not be-
to him. The storyteller then has to incorporate this word ing used. So games are best way to engage students in
into the story, and that usually has amusing conse- the lesson. Games help students create real English at-
quences (Ingvar Sigurgeirsson 1995). This game fits mosphere. If teacher chooses games in right purpose
into language teaching perfectly because the story and time, he or she gets successes in teaching.
would be told in the target language and the words
would also be in the target language. REFERENCES
12. Question games. A good game in the category: 1. Byrne, D. 1995. Games. Teaching Oral Eng-
question games, is the game “riddles about European lish. Harlow. Longman Group UK Limited.
countries”. The student get divided into pairs and each 2. Hadfield, J. 1990. A Collection of Games and
pair gets assigned a specific country and the task of pre- Activities for Low to Mid-Intermediate students of
paring a small riddle about it, such as English. Intermediate Communication Games. Hong
“It has many horses Kong: Thomus and Nelson and Nelson and Sons Ltd.
It is surrounded by sea, 3. Halliwell, S. Teaching English in the Primary
And there you cannot travel by train” (answer: Ice- Classroom. Longman.
land) 4. Langran, John and Pucell, Sue 1994. Lan-
After each pair has made their riddle they would guage Games and Activities. Netword 2. Teaching Lan-
be asked to come to the front of the class and ask the guage to Adults. London: Center for Information on
other pairs to solve the riddle. The other pairs then have Language Teaching and Research. 2009.
to write down what they think the right answer is and 5. Lovisa Krinjánsdóttir, Laufey Bjarnodóttir og
when all pairs have asked their riddles all the answers Samuel Lefever. 2006.
are collected and the pair with the most correct answers 6. Mania Moayad Mubaslat. 2011. The Effect of
wins (Ingvar Sigurgeirsson 1995). Using Educational Games on the Students’ Achieve-
In research paper done by Mei and Yu-Jing they ment in English Language for the Primary Stage.
said that Games are fun and children like them. 7. Schultz, M. and A. Fisher. 1988. Interacting in
Through games children experiment, discover, and in- the Language Classroom. Games for All Reasons. Mas-
teract with their environment. Through playing games, sachusetts.
students can learn English the way children learn their 8. Sigurgeirsson, I. 1995. Að morgue er að hy-
mother tongue without being aware they are studying; ggja. Reykjavik: Eskan ehf.
thus without stress, they can learn a lot even shy stu- 9. Sigriður, D. 2010. The use of games in the lan-
dents can participate positively. They point how to guage classroom.
choose a game. 10. Talak-Kiryk, A. 2010. Using Games in a For-
 A game must be more than just a fun. eign Language Classroom.
 A game should involve “friendly” competi- 11. Viðarsdóttir, S. 1998. Leikjabankinn/
tion. Leikjaverfurinn. Sótt 2010.
 A game should keep all of the students in-
volved and interested.