Games are the stuff of life in classroom. As well as providing stimulation, variety, interest and motivation, they help to promote positive attitudes towards learning English.

Games may be multi-sensory and involve movement. They may develop a range of different social, cognitive and language skills.

They may be played using a variety of different interaction patterns.

Games are above all enjoyable and fun, and this is both the source of their appeal and what makes them potentially hard to manage, especially if students do not perceive them, as a apart of real work.

Games has rules wich need to be adhered to if they are to function succesfully.

Another defining characteristic of games is the existence of some kind of contest. This may be either a contest between the players, in wich case the game is competitive, or a contest between the players and the goal, in wich case the game is cooperative.

When selecting or adapting games to use in class, its frequently possible to address the potential drawbacks of competitive games by making a small shift in the rules to turn what is potentially a competitive game in to a cooperative one.

Young children have a natural tendency to express themselves and find out about their world through play and this can provide positive foundations for learning a foreign language too.

Through games children can be given initial opportunities to recognize and respond to language non-verbaly. They can also produce chunks of language, in contexts wich require enjoyable repetition and wich draw them in to using English in an natural and spontaneous way.

Games allow for holistic learning and the integrated physical, social, emotional and cognitive development of young children. As well as developing language skills, games help to develop young children´s social skills, such as showing willingness to cooperate and take turns, listening to others and learning to follow and respect the rules of the games. Some games also help to develop physical coordination and psychomotor skills, visual spatial awareness and creative thinking or numeracy.

Go for simplicity!!! It´s often the simplest games that “works” the best, especially in large classes.

Make sure that all the children are involved all the time (even if not directly).

Make sure you know how the games works yourself before getting the children to play it!

Give clearly staged instructions and demonstrate and / or model the game. Play with the whole class first.

Teach children interactive language for playing the game, if appropriate, eg: it´s my / your turn and encourage them to use it.

Be fair and firm about enforcing rules (children expect and want this)

If students are playing the game independently, circulate and monitor. At the same time, however, give children space to experiment and to show that they can play the game responsibly on their own.

Stop the game while the children are stil ´on task ´ and before they lose interest.

Familiarize the children with the names of games you play regularly to reduce the need for instructions.