Yasemin Balk, Turkey
Games are important while teaching English because they are motivating and entertaining. Games help students to sustain the effort of learning. Games ceate meaningful contexts. They increase cooperation and lower anxiety.

Rosemary Wilkinson, UK
Having both taught adults and learned Greek as an adult the judicious use of games and puzzles can lighten up a class. You need to be sensitive though, if the class resists this approach, back off and revert to a more formal tone.

Wendy, The People's Republic of China
I think games are good for class room learning in 2 ways.

First, to adjust the atmosphere, make the classroom teaching and learning not so dull and arouse the interest in learning. For this purpose, it's not so important whether the games connect to the teaching context. However this kind of game may also be important in classroom teaching learning. It lets the students have a good rest so that they can go on learning more efficiently.

Secondly, to let the students grasp the newly-taught language in games. Learning will be more efficient in activities or games when the students find them interesting according to some psychologists, especially for the young kids. However, we need to connect the games and activities with the teaching content. That's to say not just to play but to learn as well. To the purpose of learning by playing, we, teachers first need to bear in mind the skills or knowledge the students need to learn. And then figure out what to play and how to play will be more effective to develop the skill or knowledge.

Angelines Cortés, Spain
I think games are very useful for learning English. I have used them with my students a lot of times. Simple crosswords work wonders. I have worked with games about stories or books, according to the age. Short performances give good results, too. For the little ones, it's very funny to cut and stick pieces of a house, school,... that they must ask for in English. I think it's useful with vocabulary, but we can work the grammar, too.

Viviane Kirmeliene, Brazil
I believe games can be a very useful tool in the learning process due to the fact that they can make learning meaningful to students. Sometimes, however, teachers feel that their students are having fun but not learning. In order to avoid this feeling (which might become true), I suggest teachers prepare games as carefully as any other task in the lesson, bearing some points in mind:
- What's the objective of the game?
- How am I going to achieve them?
- Does the game require any previous preparation?
- How long is it going to last?

These are some of the questions I usually try to answer when planning to use a game in class. Of course teachers should often trust their "intuition" or have an ace up their sleeves for rainy days or for those last five minutes of a class, but I strongly believe that if you spend some time on preparation, the game you want to play with your students will be much more meaningful to them, and you will have that feeling that your mission was accomplished.

Graciano Soares, England
Are games good for learning? Games are inevitably associated with enjoying what you’re doing. Take just any game, for example. You may start playing it to see what it’s like but soon you have to make a decision based on whether you’re enjoying it or not – do you continue or do you stop?

If a game is stimulating enough, the chances are you will want to continue playing. No wonder some can be rather addictive. In language learning, it’s the motivational aspect of games that should bear importance, not the game itself.

Sometimes you want to play a game with your students just to break the ice or to finish a lesson in which students have worked very hard and you want to provide some sort of relaxing time. Games are also good to keep a group of young learners motivated and they can help make learning more memorable. However, there are a few drawbacks.

A problem you may face when playing games with teenagers is that very often they consider the actual struggle to win points the most important part of the activity. The actual content has a secondary place. Another issue is that of language. In a monolingual class of students, for example, because the focus is on getting points, little attention is given to accuracy or even the use of the target language.

After teaching EFL in Brazil for a number of years I realised that games were important but instead of simply bringing in language games to play during specific parts of the lesson, I turned most ordinary classroom activities into games in which the main focus was on the target language. For example, whenever we worked on a worksheet, I’d split the group into two teams and awarded points for correct answers. Then, we would move on to a reading activity where students would have to answer comprehension questions and again points were awarded to groups as we went along. At the end of the lesson the group with fewer points would have to answer grammar questions asked by members of the other team.

Some may say that this approach develops too much competitiveness amongst students. I recognise this as a problem that may affect some types of groups of learners. In some countries, for example, games are not even spoken of. Just like anything else, games should be used in moderation and with clear purpose. Whenever I felt my students were already over excited or motivated I felt little need to play games with them.

Aysegul, Turkey
I think games are very useful, especially word games. These kind of games are very effective in vocabulary teaching. Words become more meaningful and memorable for the students.

Ljubica Vojdanovska, Macedonia
Well...I'm definitely in favour of using games in the classroom because they are a fun way to review something that has been learned. I think that games are pretty motivating for students and they acquire language rather than learn it through them - which is in fact the best way to do it. Of course, different types of games are suitable for different types of classes. Accordingly, you should choose the ones that are to give tyhe best results. For reviewing new vocabulary, I really like the associations game, where the words are written on separate slips of paper. Students are divided into 2 groups and take it in turns to try and explain the word to their group. All the possible ways of playing bingo are also interesting. You just have to adjust it to what you want to practise. quizzes are always a good choice, and so on.

Tony Jones, Germany
Games are a part of the socialization process. I frequently use games as warm-ups in my classes. My students, especially the adults, respond well to these activities and frequently recommend ways these games can be implemented into other exercises.

Marcus Murilo, Brazil
Well, actually SLA research has proven that the use of "anecdote exercises" can really help your students make fewer basic-level erros and improve their linguistic competence.

John Maher, United Kingdom
Games are fun... but remember the chocolate soldier? He melted when he was placed next to the fire. And the man who is always taking warm baths? Do you build a tower on a feather bed?

Isabel Zevallos, Peru
About games in class, I think they're very important. I've been an English teacher for almost 7 years and I do think students appreciate games and how memorable they could be for them.

DG
Games are good ways for teaching. To let students do (not think or listen), we should do more games to help them to learn how to use the language. But in my opinions, it's not easy to make up different games. I wonder if you can agree.

Carter Leshuk, Czech Republic
Games which are intentionally designed learning activities can be interesting and enjoyable learning experiences. This is nothing new. The originator of "learning by play" was a Czech known as Jan Amos Comenius (Komensky). Below is some interesting information about him.

INTRODUCE JOHN AMOS COMENIUS

(Jan Amos Komensky) was born in 1592 in Nivnice, Moravia, in the area that is now the Czech Republic. Known today as the "Father of Modern Education," he pioneered modern educational methods. A contemporary of Galileo, Descartes, Rembrandt, and Milton, Comenius contributed greatly to the Enlightenment. Throughout his life he tried to improve the ways students were taught. His first success was a beginning Latin textbook, Janua Linguarum Reserata ("The Gate of Languages Unlocked"), published in 1631. He produced the first children's picture book, Orbis Pictus, published in 1658. Both these books became best sellers, translated into every major European language and used by beginning learners for over a hundred years.

FACTS ABOUT COMENIUS:
• Comenius wrote 154 books in his lifetime. Many were banned and burned by the Roman Catholic Church.
• Comenius was asked to be the first President of Harvard College -- and declined.
• Comenius was the first to use pictures in a textbook.
• Comenius was the first to promote continuing education -- and the first to advocate equal education for all, including women and the poor.

Comenius's most important work was written between 1628 and 1632, first in Czech and then in Latin: the Didactica Magna, usually called in English The Great Didactic. Perhaps a more meaningful translation would be The Whole Art of Teaching. It explored how people learn and how they should be taught from infancy through the university and beyond. Published in 1649, it was a radical work for its time. In an age when people believed that human beings were born naturally evil and that goodness and knowledge had to be beaten into them, Comenius believed that they were born with a natural craving for knowledge and goodness, and that schools beat it out of them.

Quotes from John Amos Comenius, The Great Didactic, written 1628-32; published 1649; translated by M.W. Keatinge 1896.

1. Education foreveryone, not the children of the rich or of the powerful only, but of all alike. Boys and girls, both noble and ignoble, rich and poor, in all cities and towns, villages and hamlets, should be sent to school.
Education is indeed necessary for all, and this is evident if we consider the different degrees of ability. No one doubts that those who are stupid need instruction, that they may shake off their natural dullness. But in reality those who are clever need it far more, since an active mind, if not occupied with useful things, will busy itself with what is useless, curious, and pernicious.

2. Learning is Natural
Who is there that does not always desire to see, hear, or handle something new? To whom is it not a pleasure to go to some new place daily, to converse with someone, to narrate something, or have some fresh experience? In a word, the eyes, the ears, the sense of touch, the mind itself, are, in their search for food, ever carried beyond themselves; for to an active nature nothing is so intolerable as sloth.
The proper education of the young does not consist in stuffing their heads with a mass of words, sentences, and ideas dragged together out of various authors, but in opening up their understanding to the outer world, so that a living stream may flow from their own minds, just as leaves, flowers, and fruit spring from the bud on a tree.

3. Learning by Easy Stages
There is in the world no rock or tower of such a height that it cannot be scaled by any man (provided he lack not feet) if ladders are placed in the proper position or steps are cut in the rock, made in the right place, and furnished with railings against the danger of falling over.
If we examine ourselves, we see that our faculties grow in such a manner that what goes before paves the way for what comes after.

4. Lifelong Learning
If, in each hour, a man could learn a single fragment of some branch of knowledge, a single rule of some mechanical art, a single pleasing story or proverb (the acquisition of which would require no effort), what a vast stock of learning he might lay by. Seneca is therefore right when he says: "Life is long, if we know how to use it." It is consequently of importance that we understand the art of making the very best use of our lives.
Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because, as has already been shown, the mind is without limit.

5. Play. Much can be learned in play that will afterwards be of use when the circumstances demand it.
A tree must also transpire, and needs to be copiously refreshed by wind, rain, and frost; otherwise it easily falls into bad condition, and becomes barren. In the same way the human body needs movement, excitement, and exercise, and in daily life these must be supplied, either artificially or naturally.

Quotes from John Amos Comenius, The Great Didactic, written 1628-32; published 1649; translated by M.W. Keatinge 1896.