GAMES TO ACQUIRE VOCABULARY

GAMES TO ACQUIRE VOCABULARY

I have chosen the topic of games because from my point of view it is one of the most important ways to motivate children and because while they are playing they learn a lot of things. But, the topic of games is very extensive so I decided to concentrate myself on a specific skill, acquisition of vocabulary.

The game offers a resource for students because they forget they are working with the language and they are participating in a real situation of communication. For the teacher, it is also a way to teach and to review topics and concept without to be boring. In many cases, I know, they are still using vocabulary lists with drawing or learning a list of new words with meanings in their native language without any real context. They have to look up the words in a bilingual dictionary to find their meanings or definitions.

Through games or other activities children can learn in a better way. Games can help students to find English lessons more motivating, interesting, enjoyable and effective, especially vocabulary lessons.

 

All the games have to be communicative games. For this reason, games have to have three characteristics:

- An information gap: One student knows some information which another does not know.

- Choice: About what to say and how to say something.

- Feedback: Given by the person who is listening because the speaker has to know if he is been understood.

 

In conclusion, from my point of view, with the use of games, the teacher can create several contexts in which students have to use the language to communicate, exchange information and express their own opinions. Besides, learning vocabulary through games is one effective and interesting way that can be applied in any classrooms.

 

 

I have found an interesting game in Elementary Vocabulary Games (Hadfield, J. (1990) p. 10.) this activity can be interesting to work the parts of the body.

 

 

Topic: Parts of the body

 

 

Vocabulary: Arm, back, chest, elbow, finger, foot, hand, head, leg, neck, shoulder, stomach, toe.

Extra vocabulary: Big, long round, short, small, square, lift, rub, touch, waggle.

 

Materials:

Game 1: Body picture cards and body outline. One set of body picture cards for each pair.

Game 3: Two sets of robot cards, one copy per groups of three or four.

All the materials that we need are after de activities.

 

Game 1: Memorising

- Students in pairs

- Each pair one set of body picture cards and a body outline

- The cards are on the table

- They should take a word card and put it in the appropriate place on the body outline.

- They have to build up a body with all the parts in the right place

 

Game 2: Communicating, the robot game

- Groups of three or four

- Each groups two sets of the robot cards

- They have to shuffle the packs together and deal out the cards, each player has to have four. The rest should be placed face down in the middle of the table.

- They have to find as many pairs as possible.

- They should first look at their cards and discard any matching pairs. Player 1 should find their pairs. He has to describe a card. If the other player has the card, he must give it to the Player 1 who can match it up and discard the pair. If they do not have the card. Player 1 must take the top card from the pile and add it to his hand. Then it is the next player’s turn and so on.

- At the end the winner is the player with most matching pairs.

MATERIALS:

 
BIBLIOGRAPHY


 Hadfield, J. (1990). Elementary Vocabulary Games. Longman.
 
 
 Huyen, N. T. T., & Nga, K. T. T. (2003). Learning vocabulary through games. Asian EFL Journal, 5(4).