5. Conclusion 20

5.1 Implications for game application in children’s English teaching 20

5.2 Limitations of the study 20

References 21

1. Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

Since Qing Dynasty, some attention had been paid to children’s English teaching. With the development of society, plenty of preschools have voluntarily adopted English education in their daily classes together with the springing up of many English training Institutions. However, there still exist some problems. 

Game is the most natural activities throughout children’s growing process. But many preschool teachers tend to take the game only as a warm-up or a reward for children’s good performance. While according to Yang Ning (2010), children’s game works as a bridge between Behavior phylogeny and ontogeny: there exist necessary connections between game and childhood, or game is the core of childhood.  No matter how human society heads towards informatization, virtualization and networked era, game will always be the most important and fundamental activity form in childhood. 

Playing games is not only children’s nature, but also a way to grow up. Many of children’s abilities are employed and developed during game. Children’s game is as important as adults’ work.  Professor Sang Xinmin once said:” We should help children regain interests of game and protect their interests like protecting virgin forests and pandas; a world of games might be the best environment for children’s growth. If we could apply game in our teaching, then, it will be much easier to cultivate children’s motivation, discipline and capability of learning.”

Reviewing great numbers of other pervious relevant studies, the author finds that most studies mainly concentrate on the application to English teaching of elementary schools or pay attention to the present situations, problems or strategies on games applied in preschools. Therefore, the current study will focus on the relationship between English game teaching and its effect on preschool students.

1.2 Purpose and significance of the study

With the development of globalization, people have paid more and more attention to education, especially English education, which has made many scholars and researchers focus on English game teaching and publish relevant articles and journals. However, the relationship between English game teaching and its effect on preschool students still needs further study. In this article, the author will adopt game teaching in a children’s English training institution to observe how well does game teaching contribute to children’s participation and attention in English classes.

This article is of both theoretical and practical significance. For the theoretical perspective, it will explore the relationship between English game teaching and its effect on preschool students, making this study field more comprehensive. For the practical perspective, it may provide some suggestions for some preschool teachers and for the author.

 2. Literature Review

2.1 The definition of game

When we mention game, it is hard to skip the word “play”. “Play” and “Game” have similar meanings, but the former is more about all kinds of activities for amusement, and the latter more about competition with certain rules. Following are some definitions of “play” and “game”.

According to Huizinga (1998), play is a voluntary activity or pastime, which goes on in a certain extent of space-time; its rule is freely accepted by participants and has absolute binding; it aims at playing accompanied by a feeling of tension and delight together with a consciousness that is different from daily life.  And for Hadfield, Jill (1984), game is an activity with rules, a goal and an element of fun.