Students will be able to…

Number of players: 3 - 6

Another unforeseen situation was that we did not print the instructions for the game, so the players asked us in different occasions how to play; that is why we think that we should have not taken for granted that instructions whether we find the game easy or not. In addition, we received some feedback from the players in terms of the questions and language used for the game, and it was noted that some questions had a few grammar mistakes that we passed by, and also that there were some confusing questions that we had to fix.

During the game, we could notice that although these players had a higher proficiency level in the language, they avoided the use of modal verbs; moreover, they limited their range of modal verbs to the use of ‘would’ in most cases and just once the use of ‘should’. What we can conclude about this issue is that even though students had the vocabulary knowledge to answer the questions and were accurate and fluent in their responses, they did not know use other modal verbs because they were not explicitly told that. In the beginning, we thought that explicit instructions about the use of modal verbs were not necessary because the questions we created prompted students to use modal verbs; however, as the questions were mainly written with ‘would’ in it, students use it as it was the fastest word to come to their minds. Thus, we think it would be useful to add some prompts to the questions such as ‘use two different modal verbs’ or ‘use might or probably’ in this question, etc. so that students focus on these lexical items and use them consciously.

Finally, once the game was over we reflected about whether the learning aims of our game were accomplished or not, and as stated before, students were able to express and communicate their personal experiences and feelings in the questions and were able to use vocabulary from the topic as they were advanced learners and their vocabulary had a wider range. Nonetheless, the learning aim that was not completely achieved was the use of modal verbs because even though the players used some modal verbs, they did not use most of them in their answers as we expected.

All things considered, this game experience was very fruitful for us as future EFL teachers because we could see how much students appreciate experiences like this. Our players were relaxed and happy to be playing, besides, their affective filter was lower as they were enjoying the game so they were not anxious to speak in English and this made them more fluent and even more accurate when speaking.

The factors mentioned above are crucial at the moment of teaching a foreign language, especially because most students do not feel comfortable or proficient enough in the foreign language. Thus, EFL teachers need to provide students with all the possible elements that will contribute to a meaningful, long-term and stress-free learning experience. This is exactly what positive psychology fosters teachers to implement in their classrooms, and MacIntyre and Mercer (2014:156) explain the dynamic of language learning classrooms as the following:

“Many language educators are aware of the importance of improving individual learners’ experiences of language learning by helping them to develop and maintain their motivation, perseverance, and resiliency, as well as positive emotions necessary for the long-term undertaking of learning a foreign language. In addition, teachers also widely recognise the vital role played by positive classroom dynamics amongst learners and teachers, especially in settings in which communication and personally meaningful interactions are foregrounded.”

Therefore, when we created the game, we thought that it was necessary to include the suggestions based on positive psychology to obtain positive results from our students. It is very common to encounter anxious students who are neither accurate nor fluent when using a second language probably due to distressing experiences with language learning. That is why to solve this problem, our game tried to evoke responses in which students unconsciously made use of vocabulary from a specific unit and modal verbs. The main purpose of this game was to help students overcome the stress that speaking tests provoke, by showing them that they have enough linguistic knowledge to speak in English and that a positive state of mind can significantly help them to obtain better results.

Furthermore, in our board game we focused on fostering social and emotional learning an this means that it may focus not only on the acquisition of knowledge and skills as in other subject areas, but also in changing or developing values, beliefs, attitudes, and everyday behaviors. SEL is not just about individual well-being but also about the development of healthy relationships and caring communities (Roffey, 2008). Also, by playing the game the students could not only practice the use of certain travel and tourism concepts, or certain grammar points, but also they could enhance the following skills taken out from an exhaustive list proposed by Hromek & Roffey (2009): 

To summarize, we have always thought that playing games in the classroom was really fun for us, as teachers, and for the students, but now we have realized thanks to this course that games have more aims that only having fun. Due to their stress-free feature, games promote social learning as well as emotional learning while at the same time focusing on the content and grammar point the students need to practice.

 

MacIntyre, P. & Mercer, S. (2014). Introducing positive psychology to SLA. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching. Vol 4, No 2. Retrieved from:  https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ssllt/article/view/3938/3987 

Roffey, S. (2008). Emotional literacy and the ecology of school well-being. Educational and Child Psychology, 25(2), pp. 29-39.