Why Use Games in the Educational Process?

Language learning is hard work. One must make an effort to understand, to repeat accurately, to manipulate newly understood language and to use the whole range of known language in conversation or written composition. Effort is required at every step and must be maintained over a long period of time. Games help and encourage many learners to sustain their interest and motivation.

Games also help the teacher to create contexts in which language is useful and meaningful. The learners want to take part and in order to do so must understand what others are saying or have written, and they must speak or write in order to express their own points of view or give information.

Many games offer as much density of practice as more conventional drill exercises; some do not. What matters, however, is the quality of practice.

The contribution of drilling lies in the concentration on a language form and its frequent use during a limited period of time. Many games provide this repeated use of a language form. By making the language convey information and opinion, games provide the key feature of “drilling” with the opportunity to sense the working of language as living communication.

The need for meaningfulness in language learning has been accepted for some years. A useful interpretation of “meaningfulness” is that the learners respond to the content in a definite way. If they are amused, angered, challenged, intrigued or surprised by the content, clearly their reading, speaking and writing will be more vividly experienced and, therefore, better remembered.

If it is accepted that games can provide intense and meaningful practice of language, then they must be regarded as central to a teacher’s repertoire. They are thus not for use solely on rainy days or at the end of the term.

Games can be found to give practice in all the skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking), in all the stages of the teaching/learning sequence (presentation, repetition, recombination and free use of language) and for many types of communication functions (e. g. encouraging, criticising, agreeing, explaining).