The Effects of Teaching English through Games

The Effects of Teaching English through Games Amonrat Chirandon 1, Asst Prof Dr Chonlada Laohawiriyanon 2, Anchana Rakthong3 1 M A in teaching English as an international Language, Department of Langu.

The Effects of Teaching English through Games

Amonrat Chirandon 1 , Asst Prof Dr Chonlada Laohawiriyanon 2 , Anchana Rakthong 3

1 M.A in teaching English as an international Language, Department of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of liberal Arts, Prince of Songkhla University.

2 Department of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkhla University

3 Department of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkhla University

ABSTRACT

The present study investigated the effects of teaching English through games to Thai students who study in grade six at Tessaban 4 Banlamsai School Thirty students were selected by purposive sampling as an experimental group The experiment was conducted during the first semester of the academic year 2009 The research instruments consisted of a test and a questionnaire Fourteen lesson plans were created and used to teach six different topics determined by the school curriculum and nine types of games were implemented in different lesson plans The data collection procedures were divided into three parts: a pre-experimental phase, an experimental phase and a post-experimental phase The findings revealed that students had significantly improved in vocabulary knowledge and ability to communicate Moreover, they tended to have more positive attitudes towards learning English through games Regarding these results, it can be recommended that using games in teaching English

is beneficial to beginners especially those in primary school However, to do so, teachers ought to consider thoughtfully when selecting suitable games to be used This is because it was found in the study that students with different learning styles and English ability performed differently when different types of games were used

Key words: conversation games, vocabulary games, vocabulary knowledge, ability

to communicate

Giving importance to English for communication, the Thai National Education Act of B.E.2544, has shifted principle of teaching English from focusing on grammar to emphasizing on communication Department of Curriculum and Instruction Development (2002) Therefore, nowadays, communicative approach is implemented as a significant method because its main purpose is to enhance learners’ communication skills Department of Curriculum and Instruction Development (2002) Moreover, the Ministry of Education expects that Thai students are able to communicate in English in various situations and they will have positive attitudes towards learning English In particular, for grade six students, the Proficiency – based of this level requires that students have to be able to exchange and present information in English and are able to integrate speaking, listening and reading skills

in order to communicate in particular topics such as, personal information, environment and hobbies However, to be able to adopt a communicative approach into classes, teachers need

to know and to familiarize with it; otherwise, they continue teaching the tradition teaching style Musigrungsi (2002)

To be successful in implementing a communicative approach to young learners, teachers should not only know how to apply it but also understand young learners’ characteristics Surassawadee (1999) and Brown (2000) proposed that the outstanding characteristics of beginners are curiosity, activeness, having a short span interest, preferring working in group Considering these characteristics, it can be stated that young learners have

a short period in concentrating in learning; however, they are curious and prefer the active activity Consequently, teachers have to consider selecting an appropriate method that helps promote English learning and be suitable for students’ characteristics

A number of effective teaching techniques are used to stimulate beginners’ interests Using games in classroom is one of recommended techniques Lee (1995) stated that to use games in classroom can support English learning in many perspectives That is it provides opportunities for target language practice, encourages students to communicate by using all four language skills, and creates a real life situation for using language Moreover, the foremost students’ problem in learning English is lack of interest; hence, Wright, Betteridge, and Buckby (2005) suggested that games were the effective means sustaining students’ interest and getting rid of anxiety in class. In addition, in terms of social relationship, Jacobs and Kline Liu (1996) and Ersoz (2005) mentioned that games develop students’ social skills

in co-operating with others as well as build up team spirit Furthermore, relevance to different intelligences, Gardner (1999) recommended that games can develop three types of intelligences: spatial, bodily kinesthetic and interpersonal intelligence

All aforementioned information point out that the most important advantage of using games in teaching English is to vividly learn English based on real life situation without anxiety or stress However, to implement games in English class, teachers should consider numerous factors One is choosing appropriate games to a group of learners Ampaipan (1999) proposed six criteria for selecting games There are a number of students in class, places: inside or outside class, level of age: children, teenagers or adults, level of English proficiency: beginner, intermediate or advanced learners, duration and the content: English skills, the difficulties of language In addition, teachers should further consider how to implement games to class Reese (1999, cited in Sripramong, 2004) suggested that games can

be used in English class for two purposes The first is to activate background knowledge in presentation stage such as, matching picture with target vocabulary Secondly, it is used to

practice English skills or learn particular grammar in practice stage such as, using spelling games to teach vocabulary

In Thai context, especially teaching beginners, numerous researchers are interested in teaching English through games Roikrong (1998) investigated the enhancement of English listening speaking skills of 100 the first grade students at Anuban Lampang School who were divided into two groups: experimental and control groups This study used different 10 games and the finding shown that there was a significantly different between two groups The students in experimental have greater improved than those in control group

In terms of vocabulary research, Sripramong (2004) investigated the effect of using vocabulary games on the retention in learning vocabulary of 40 students in grade five The findings revealed that students’ retention in learn English vocabulary games were at high level and students have positive attitudes toward vocabulary games Furthermore, Thamsri (2005) investigated the English achievement of 100 Prathomsuksa five students who were taught English by using games The findings indicated that the English achievement of students in experimental group was significantly greater than control group

From the above evidence, it can be assumed that teaching English through games is one of the effective techniques It can help students improve both vocabulary knowledge and ability to communicate The present study; thus, investigated the effects of teaching English through games of grade six students at Tessaban 4 Banlamsai School This mainly focuses on the students’ improvement in vocabulary knowledge and ability to communicate in English

In so doing, two research questions are set to frame the study: Do games help improve students’ English performance and what are students’ attitudes toward teaching English through games?

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Participants

By means of purposive sampling, 33 students in grade six were selected as the participants in this study It was a mixed-ability class The participants have been studying English for nine years In the last two years, they have had an opportunity to study with English native teachers

Research Instruments

Two research instruments were employed: a test and a questionnaire

A test (Pre-Post test)

In order to investigate the learners’ improvement in terms of their vocabulary knowledge and ability to communicate in English, a test was used This test consisted of 20 items with four alternatives The same test version was administered twice as pre and post tests The test content covers five topics: greeting and introducing, numbers and calendar, giving personal information, asking personal information, and pronouns The test was designed by the researcher under the supervision of the advisor Then it was given to an external rater with a test specification in order to examine its content validity

A questionnaire

The questionnaire with three-point scale: 3 = strongly like, 2 = moderate, 1 = dislike was used to investigate the students’ attitudes toward learning English through games It consisted of 16 items divided into 3 parts: attitudes towards the English language learning, attitudes towards teaching activities including using games, and attitudes towards types of games used in teaching English

PROCEDURES

Data collection

The present study was an experimental research conducted in the first semester in the

2009 academic year

Before the experiment, a pre-test was administered to the participants 30 minutes was allowed for students to complete the 20 item test Then the experiment was conducted During the experimental phase, the class was scheduled twice a week Students were taught with 14 lesson plans covering six different topics Each lesson plan was written based on the three Ps procedures: presentation, practice and production stages Games were implemented

in a practice stage in all lesson plans The games used in this study were classified into two types: conversation games and vocabulary games (See Table 1) After the experimental phase, participants were given a post-test and the questionnaire

Table 1: Lesson plans and types of games included.

information Missing information

Quick questions and

information Searching questions

and answers

Data Analysis

To find out students’ improvement in vocabulary knowledge and ability in communication, the obtained data were analyzed by means of the SPSS program Specifically, Pair sample t-test was computed to investigate significant differences between students’ pre and post test scores Additionally, to explore students’ attitudes toward learning English through games, descriptive statistics (mean and S.D.) were calculated on students’ responses in the questionnaire

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Findings and discussions are presented in the order of these research questions:

1 Do games help improve students’ English performance?

2 What are students’ attitudes toward teaching English through games?

Regarding the first research question, it was found that the participants have some improvement in English As shown in Table 2, the mean score of pre-test was 5.0 and after the experiment, the mean score of test was 6.79 The result shows the significant difference at

a 0.01 level Therefore, it can be stated that students had improvement in vocabulary knowledge and ability to communicate in English after learning English through games Even there was an increase in a students’ means score, the statistical test shows a little increase This might be because of several reasons One reason is that there was of a limitation in terms

of time in the experiment phase During the first semester, students had to participate in sports competition Consequently, in the experimental period, they had learned English only

40 minutes per class Moreover, students do not ready to study because they were tired from sports rehearsal in the morning The time limitation and learners’ readiness were found to have some influence on the learners’ when they were in class Todd (1999) stated that the amount of allocated time is the important factor that affects students’ learning In the periods

of doing activity, if allocated time is limited, the amount of academic learning time will also

be limited; therefore, students will be unsuccessful in their learning

Table 2: Mean Scores before and after the experiment

** Significant at 0.01 level

In terms of attitudes towards learning English through games, the obtained data shown that the learners do not strongly like nor dislike learning English They prefer to learn English at the moderate level ( X = 2.39) However, students were likely to have positive attitudes towards learning English through games which can be assumed from Table 3 The results illustrated that the average mean scores of attitudes toward games used in teaching English was 2.51 This falls into the strongly like level This can be interpreted that students like to study English through games

Games used in this study were classified into two types: conversation games and vocabulary games The means scores of three vocabulary games (Item 8-10) revealed that students tend to prefer these types of games; moreover, whispering games obtained the highest means scores In addition, the mean scores of conversation games shown that students

preferred four out of six games at the strongly like level Only searching questions and answers and quick questions and answer game were at the moderate level

Table 3: Attitudes towards types of games used in teaching English

To further investigate the attitudes toward teaching activities, it was found that among the six teaching activities, playing games received the highest score Table 4 shows that consulting dictionary, playing games and repeating conversation obtained the high mean scores and they were at strongly like level However, playing games obtained the highest mean scores (x = 2.76) This can be interpreted that students are likely to prefer learning English through games rather than other teaching activities

Table 4: Attitudes toward teaching activities

Considering the data in Table 3 and 4, it was that students are likely to prefer games used in this study; in addition, when comparing among different teaching activities, students showed the highest preference on learning English through games As a result, it can be assumed that students in this group have positive attitudes toward learning English through games

SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS

As shown in Table 1, games are beneficial to the participants in learning English The data reveal students’ improvement in ability to communication in English and their vocabulary knowledge after learning English through games The findings of this study are consistent with the previous research conducted by Rama (1994), which divided 78 students studying in grade four at Jurong primary school into two groups The results revealed that students who learnt English through games had a greater improvement in speaking skills than students learning with teacher centered method

Additionally, Dickerson (1997), conducted research focusing on the retention of vocabulary 274 students, studying in grade one, were separated to three groups: Learn vocabulary through active games, passive games and traditional activity The results indicated that students in first group obtained higher retention on English vocabulary more than the other groups The findings from previous research can be supported that learning English through games is a significant effective technique In addition, games can be implemented in any English skills depending on what researcher would like to improve

According to results in Tables 2, 3, and 4, it can be interpreted that students are likely

to prefer learning English through games; moreover, all games which are employed in English class are greatly satisfied by students Therefore, using games is one effective alternative treatment which encourages the active learning atmosphere as well as stimulates students’ interest in an English class

IMPLICATIONS

Even though games are able to implement or apply in English classes, a number of dimensions need to be concerned in so doing There are how to choose appropriate games, how to design the teaching plan and how to implement games in real class In terms of choosing games, teachers should be concerned about students’ learning styles This is in order to provide games that best suit students Some students may prefer to work alone than

in group As a result, they may not take any parts in group work when being assigned to do so whereas some may prefer group work, so they may tend to be inactive or keep quite when being assigned to work alone In addition, different games serve different purposes, so when designing a teaching plan, teachers should specify in which stage games would be employed

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