CC BY
1THE ROLE OF GAME IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING
AKATAYEVA BALZHAN KUANYSHKYZY
English teacher, Practical English Department, Kazakh National Women's Pedagogical
University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
ZHANAR SHYNYBERGEN
English teacher, Practical English Department, Kazakh National Women's Pedagogical
University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Annotation. This text explores the role of foreign language teaching in fostering students' creative abilities and emphasizes the importance of using games as an educational tool. It discusses how foreign language instruction, through communicative and cognitive activities like listening, speaking, reading, and writing, can stimulate creativity, develop cognitive functions, and shape students' social and moral values. It highlights that games not only make learning more engaging but also contribute to the development of important psychological traits, including cooperation, responsibility, and resilience. The text explains that incorporating games into lessons helps reduce the pressure on individual students and encourages collective participation, fostering both competition and collaboration. Various types of games, such as lexical, grammar, and creative games, are introduced as effective methods for reinforcing language skills. The text also touches on the educational theories of figures like M.F. Stronin and V Rivers, who suggest that games can facilitate learning without stifling students' creativity and speech fluency. Ultimately, the article advocates for the integration ofplay in foreign language teaching to maintain students' motivation, enhance their learning experiences, and help them reach their full potential.
Key words. Foreign language teaching, creative abilities, cognitive development, educational games, language skills, communicative activities, motivation, cooperative learning, competition and collaboration, psychological development, grammar games, lexical games, phonetic games, creative games, educational theories, speech fluency, student engagement, teaching methods, play therapy.
A foreign language, as a general educational subject, can and should contribute to the process of developing students' creative abilities. Having a huge educational, developmental and educational potential for students' creative abilities, a foreign language can realize it only in the course of implementing the practical goal of learning, that is, only if the student, in the process of foreign-language communicative and cognitive activity (listening, speaking, reading, writing), expands his general educational horizons, develops his thinking, memory, feelings and emotions; if in the process of foreign-language communication, the social and value qualities of the individual are formed: worldview, moral values and beliefs, character traits. Many children who begin to study a foreign language at school think that it is fun and amusing. But after a while they begin to understand that it is not easy at all, and soon a foreign language becomes one of the unloved subjects. One of the reasons that leads to this result is the difficulty in learning grammar. [5] Traditional methods of explanation and training do not lead to the desired result. Learning is more effective if students are actively involved in the process. There are different ways to stimulate children to be active, but the most effective are play, creativity and curiosity. Nowadays, games are an integral part of teaching English. A Belgian businessman, who observed children who were learning grammar through play, said: "It isn't silly at all", thereby expressing surprise that a game can be funny and serious at the same time. Games contribute to intensive language practice. They can be used at the beginning of a lesson or at the end for stimulation, to reduce tension after a test, to change the activities in the lesson. It is important that games bring joy, help in training language phenomena. One of the advantages of games is that all students work at the same time. Participation in games develops the ability to cooperate, compete without showing aggression, to be able to lose, to take responsibility. Games known to children from their life experience in their native language are of particular importance. Using games
is an effective way to review language phenomena. In general, students like games that have an element of luck because it adds excitement to the game. Games that depend on the students' skills become boring, since the same capable children win, and the excitement of most players decreases. Games with an element of luck include guessing games, dice games, and card games. Most games are competitive in nature, and one person or a team can win. Using team and group games helps reduce the pressure of competition on one person. Keeping these principles in mind - luck and skill, competition and cooperation, surprise, which are the basis of all games - a teacher can turn an exercise from a textbook into a game. Using various games helps to captivate children with a foreign language, creates conditions for achieving success in learning a language. And students who want to play will definitely want to improve their knowledge of a foreign language. When planning lessons, a teacher should think not only about students memorizing new words, this or that structure, but also strive to create all the opportunities for the development of each child's individuality. To maintain children's interest in their subject, you need to understand what methods of work can captivate children. Every foreign language teacher should constantly look for reserves to improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching a foreign language. We believe that the main task of a teacher is to ensure that interest in learning a foreign language does not disappear. Games help children become creative individuals, teach them to be creative in any matter. Being creative in a matter means doing it well, at a higher level. Creativity is constant improvement and progress in any activity. Games bring children and adults the joy of creativity. Without the joy of creativity, our life turns into boredom and routine. A creative person is always passionate about something. A person's standard of living depends on his or her creative abilities. Both an adult and a child can see the unusual in the ordinary. Creativity is inherent in children by nature itself. They love to compose, invent, fantasize, depict, and transform. Children's creativity quickly fades if others do not show interest in it. Joint creative games bring both adults and children together. This is one of the most important principles of effective education. When playing, a child always strives to go forward, not backward. In games, children do everything as a trio: their subconscious, their mind, their imagination "work" synchronously. There is a branch of medicine and psychology called play therapy. Play can be used to diagnose and get to know a child. Play can be used to encourage and approve of a child.
With the help of the game, it is possible to correct, improve, and develop important psychological properties in children [2]. The game always involves making a decision - what to do, what to say, how to win. The desire to solve these issues speeds up the thinking process of the players. However, for children, the game is, first of all, an exciting activity. In the game, everyone is equal. Even weak students can do it. A sense of equality, an atmosphere of enthusiasm and joy, a feeling of the feasibility of tasks - all this enables children to overcome shyness, which prevents them from freely using words of a foreign language in speech and has a beneficial effect on learning outcomes. Language material is imperceptibly absorbed, and at the same time a feeling of satisfaction arises - it turns out that I can speak on an equal basis with everyone else. Games contribute to the fulfillment of the following methodological tasks: - creating psychological readiness of children for verbal communication; - ensuring the natural need for them to repeat language material multiple times; -training students in choosing the right speech option; The place of games in the lesson and the time allocated to the game depend on a number of factors: the preparation of students, the material being studied, the goals and conditions of the lesson, etc. For example, if the game is used as a training exercise during initial consolidation, then 20-25 minutes of the lesson can be allocated to it. Later, the same game can be used to repeat the material already covered. The same game can be used at different stages of the lesson. It should be remembered that for all the attractiveness and effectiveness of games, it is necessary to observe a sense of proportion, otherwise they will tire students and lose the freshness of their emotional impact. Let's consider the theory of M. F. Stronin, who in his book "Educational Games in English Lessons" divides games into the following categories: 1. lexical games; 2. grammar games; 3. phonetic games; 4. spelling games; 5. creative games. For example, let's take listening games. The teacher is set goals: - to teach students to understand the meaning of a single statement; - to teach students to highlight the main thing in the flow of information; - develop
students' auditory memory. You can conduct games on listening to a text without having any pictures, drawings, pre-prepared questions, text points, etc.; these are games on developing auditory memory. The teacher reads the text at a normal pace, and the players listen. After listening to the text, the teacher suggests writing down the words that each participant in the game has remembered. Then the teacher reads the text again and gives the task of writing out groups of words and remembered phrases. After this, the participants in the game reconstruct the text from memory, using their notes. The winner is the one who conveys the content of the text most accurately. Team games are very effective in teaching listening; after listening to the text, team members compose and then ask their opponents questions about the content of the text. The winner is the team that answers the questions most accurately. Of particular interest are games in which, after listening to the text (preferably with a large number of characters), it is necessary to act out a scene based on the content of the text. In these games, children demonstrate not only their listening abilities, but also their artistic abilities. It is advisable to teach listening in a variety of interesting games. In them, the child can express himself as an individual, as well as a member of a group. There are no universal games for teaching listening, but any exercise, any text can be turned into a game. To do this, it is necessary to prepare the necessary accessories, create an atmosphere of competition, make the assignment to the texts varied, but at the same time accessible and interesting. Texts can be used from textbooks, additional books on the English language, invented by the teacher or students themselves. The main thing, in our opinion, is to turn an elementary text into an interesting game that attracts the child. [5] During the game, students should not be interrupted, because this disrupts the atmosphere of communication. V. Rivers writes about this: "Very often in society, people prefer to remain silent if they know that their speech will cause a negative reaction from the interlocutor. Likewise, a student whose every mistake the teacher corrects not only loses the main idea of the statement, but also the desire to continue the conversation." [4] Corrections should be made quietly, without interrupting the students' speech, or do this at the end of the lesson. W. Bennett generally believes that a teacher has the right to ignore some mistakes so as not to suppress the students' speech activity. Games are best used in the middle or at the end of a lesson in order to relieve tension. It is important that working with games brings positive emotions and benefits, and in addition, serves as an effective stimulus in a situation when children's interest or motivation to study a foreign language begins to weaken.
The use of games in foreign language lessons helps the teacher to better reveal the personal potential of each student, his or her positive personal qualities (hard work, activity, independence, initiative, ability to work in cooperation, etc.), to maintain and strengthen educational motivation.
1. Kozvonina V. P. Development of creative abilities of students. Nach. shk. 2000. № 7.
2. Lukyanchikova N. V. Teaching a foreign language at the initial stage of training. // - Primary school - 2001 - № 11 - pp. 49-51
3. Passov E. I. Foreign language lesson in secondary school. - Moscow: Education, 1988.
4. Rogova G. V., Vereshchagina I. N. Methods of teaching English at the initial stage in general educational institutions: Manual for teachers and students of pedagogical universities. — 3rd ed.
— M.: Prosveshchenie, 2000. — 232 p.
5. www.festival.1september.ru Mukhiddinova, S. A. The role of play in the process of learning English at school / S. A. Mukhiddinova, D. S. Uralova. — Text: direct // Young scientist. — 2013.
— No. 7 (54). — P. 397-399. — URL: https://moluch.ru/archive/54/7313/ (date of access: 25.11.2024).
LITERATURE:
