TOPIC 18

FUNCIONES DEL JUEGO Y DE LA CREATIVIDAD EN EL APRENDIZAJE DE LAS LENGUAS

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

INTRODUCTION

Let me start with the first point of the essay.

1. FUNCTIONS OF GAMES AND CREATIVE IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING.

Let us begin by saying that Games is a term that comprises a wide variety of
activities with a common aim; to make students creatively practice and produce the
language. Games have a value themselves as part of the didactics of the language
teaching and have long been advocated for assisting language learning. Even, a new
term has been created in Education, it is called Gamification. It is the use of game-based
mechanics, aesthetics and game-thinking to engage people, motivation action and
promote learning and solve problems.

There are many good reasons for using games in the English classroom, I will
point out the most important ones.

1.2. REASONS FOR USING GAMES IN THE ENGLISH CLASSROOM.

From a psychological point of view, songs encourage social integration in class.

Singing is a group activity and a cooperative act which helps to bring the class together.
It promotes lowers affective filter as Krashen stated.

Focusing on linguistic aspects, songs allow new language to be introduced and

structures and vocabulary to be recycle and reinforced. They encourage unconscious
learning of the language

Regarding pedagogical aspects, songs are motivating for good and weak
students. They also create a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom and encourage
learning. In addition to this, songs develop positive attitudes towards the foreign
language, since they provide students with fun, creating in them a desire to learn.

Finally talking about the adaptation. It is easily adjusted for age, level, and
interests. Also, It give us the opportunity to use the four skills.

After presenting the main reasons of using games, now let me present some basic steps
to follow.
1.3. ADVANTAGES FOR USING GAMES IN THE FOREIGN LANGUAGE CLASSROOM.

The main advantages of using games for language learning can be summarized
in effectiveness, because they provide motivation and variety, making learning and
interactive and interesting process. This is achieved by lowering students’ stress and
giving them the opportunities for real communication.

The most relevant advantages of games in language teaching can be are:

• They encourage motivation to learn a language.

• They capture student´s attention and participation.
• They lower students’ stress and make them feel comfortable for this reason they
learn without realizing.
• They promote social interaction and cooperative skills because using a song in
English provides a sense of achievement and build the children´s confidence.
• They are a break from the usual routine.
• Teacher and students get nearer.
• They help to develop creativity in learning.

Once we have examined the advantages, let us study creativity

1.4 CREATIVITY

“Creativity is defined as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or

possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and
entertaining ourselves and others.” –Robert E. Franken (2005).

Creativity thinking is an important skill in real life. It is part of our survival strategies and
it helps to compensate lack of language in a communicative situation.

We as teachers must try to develop our student´s creativity because:

• Being creative is present in all disciplinary learning contexts, although we rarely

use words like creativity to describe such things.
• We all need to be creative (inventive/adaptive) in a world that is constantly
changing: a world that also requires us to change/adapt.
• Teachers should value creativity, originality, flair and imagination in their
students’ learning. Indeed, creativity as one of the hallmarks of excellence in
higher education learning and performance.

In order to encourage creativity we as teachers should promote activities such

as inventing a dialogue, a new end for a story, a song or creating a game.

Now, let us move onto another important aspect of this unit:definition and typology
of games for the learning al the linguistic development.
2. DEFINITION AND TYPOLOGY OF GAMES FOR THE LEARNING AL THE LINGUISTIC
DEVELOPMENT.

2.1. DEFINITION OF GAMES.

Games are fun activities that promote interaction, thinking, learning, and
problem solving strategies. They play a significant role in reinforcing and reviewing
specific structures, grammatical patterns and vocabulary items as well as promoting
communicative competence in the target language. The exceptional power of games to
engage students attention is evident. They spend a lot of time and energy in watching
or participating in games (Ludewig and Swang, 2007)

2.1. TYPES OF GAMES

Classifying games into categories can be difficult, because categories often

overlap. We distinguish 3 classifications considering different parameters according to
Hadfield. He divides games into linguistic and communicative, competitive and
cooperative and according to the materials or elements involved.

As regards the first classification, on the one hand Linguistic games focus on
accuracy, such as supplying the correct antonym, matching definition and word. On the
other hand, communicative games focus on successful exchange of information and
ideas, such as two people identifying the differences between their two pictures.

Then, the second classification games can be classified as competitive or co-

operative games. In competitive games individual players or teams race to be the first
to reach their goal. They are very motivating, but the need for speed often distorts the
language used such as in board games or hides and seeks.

On the other hand, in co-operative games players or teams work together towards
a common goal. These games encourage teamwork, creative thinking and problem
solving. They promote all student´s participation such as puzzle or treasure hunts.

Finally, we classify games according to their basic characteristics or materials

involved.

Firstly, we have movement or action games where physical movement is involved.

For instance, many TPR activities, the famous "Simon says...", running dictations, in
which students rush to dictate some message to their classmates.

Moreover, we can find card games in which students need cards to play. Examples
would be dominoes, bingos, memory games in which students face up cards and make
pairs, exchanging cards, collecting them, matching word-picture, opposites, synonyms
etc I really good example es Kaboom! or Dice games which consist of rolling the dice and
saying the name of the pictures, completing sentences, making sentences with the word
displayed, etc.

The next type is drawing games in which students listen to descriptions and draw
according to them or draw something and they have to guess such as Pictionary.

We can also used Board games which imply the use of a board and normally
counters and dice. Examples of these games are snakes and ladders, knots and crosses,
or any hand-made board game, etc. Most of these games can be also Quizzes where
the teacher or the students make questions about a given topic and they get points if
they answered correctly such as Who wants to be a millionaire? or Trivial

We need to mention another type of games: digital or interactive games. Those

games are played using the ICT. Students can play already known games like find the
pairs but just using the tablet or digital board, like quizzes (Kahoot) or multiple games
together (Blooket), etc. There are plenty of these games available on the internet.

We cannot forget to talk about new kind of games as space rooms or breakouts.
But, What is an escape room? Escape rooms involve following clues to solve a puzzle
that will lead to players escaping a single room, or sometimes a series of rooms. What
about a breakout? It is game for the classroom is a gamification activity in which
students have to overcome a series of challenges or missions to open locks or a closed
box, either physically (in the real world) or simulated (in the online world). Most of them
can be created used a software as genially and they can be used to work festivities,
workshops or any contents form our area.

However, when we select games, we must pay attention to some important

criteria and guidelines:

2.2. CRITERIA TO SELECT GAMESAND SOME GUIDELINES FOR USING GAMES THEM

They must be based on a learning objective in which we can include doable

challenges. Also they should be fun and interesting, thus motivating and based on reality
in order to intrinsically motivate the listener.

When selecting a games, we must pay attention to some relevant aspects.

The student´s cultural background, and how they will help or delay their
understanding.

The student´s linguistic proficiency, we might need to ask yourself questions like,
are they familiar with the vocabulary? Or is the grammar adequate for our students?
 Moreover, we have to take into account the availability of the songs, the length
and exploitability. It also has to fit with the syllabus, age and our students´ motivation
and interest.

As regards the guidelines, we have to take into account

- Create expectations according to students´ level.

- Control space, time, size of the group we need for each activity.
- Give clear instructions and explain students the aim of the activity.
- Set some rules that students have to follow and assign the teams before the
activity.

This leads us to the section, in which we will analyse the games as a ludic technique to
gain communicative competence.

3. GAMES AS A CREATIVE TECHNIQUE TO ATTAIN COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE IN

FOREING LANGUAGE.

As I have mentioned before we, as teachers, use all these games and strategies
to make our students´ learning meaningful and to achieve CC, one of the competences
that they need to acquire through Primary Education stage. But what is the CC?

Communicative Competence is what Dell Hymes stated as not only the capacity
to produce grammatically correct utterances (as Chomsky argued), but also to the
capacity to know how to use a language: when to speak, when not, to whom, etc.

During the 1970s and 80s many linguists with interest in the theory of language
acquisition gave their contribution to the development of Communicative Competence.
In 1983, Widdowson made a distinction between competence and capacity. He defined
competence in terms of the knowledge of linguistic and sociolinguistic conventions.

Recent theoretical and empirical research on Communicative Competence is

based on three models of communicative competence: the model of Canale and Swain,
Bachman and Palmer and the description of components of Communicative language
competence in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR).

In this CEFR for language, CC is mentioned and developed, being divide in:

• Linguistic competence, this is the ability to produce grammatically correct

utterances.
• Sociolinguistic competence, it makes reference to the social and cultural
context that affects a communicative situation.
• Pragmatic competence, it is the use of functional resources in the
language.

We can also distinguish four characteristics in this competence:

 • Feasibility, a native speaker knows if something is possible in the language.
• Occurrence, a native speaker knows how often things can be said in a language.
• Systematic potential, a native speaker has an inner system to create correct
utterances.
• Appropriacy, a native speaker knows whether something in a language is
appropriate in a given situation

The best methodology we can present to our pupils is a mixture of several

approaches and techniques to teach the second language due to the fact every single
student is unique, and we, as teachers should be ready to adapt our style to the different
needs in the class. However we should highlight the Communicative Approach.

The foreign language curriculum of Primary Education specified for the

Community of Madrid,in the Decree 61/2022, of July the 13th establishes in the stage
objective letter f the following: “Acquire in, at least, the English language, the basic
communicative competence that allows them to express and understand simple
messages and to function in daily situations in this language”. (PODÉIS PONER
CUALQUIER OTRA MENCIÓN DEL DECRETO 61 CON RESPECTO AL ÁREA O LA CC).

Now that we have studied the dramatizing situations of the daily life and the
representation of stories, characters, jokes, etc. , let me start dealing with the work in
groups for creative activities.

I will end this essay with a conclusion.

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY