H YA C I N T H G A U D A R T
University of Malaya • Malaysia
wIth the current emphAsIs on communIcAtIon In teaching language, board games appear to hold a solu tion for many teachers. The communicative act brings with it an element of surprise and nonanticipation for the language learner which he needs to be given practice in. Of course, the teacher can begin with the more for mulaic ways of speaking, but for a conversation to go further, the interactors have to take strides into the unknown. Neither participant in the speech act can fully anticipate what the other is going to say, and cannot therefore have a pre planned response available. The stu dent of the foreign language, therefore, needs practice in free, less controlled situations in class, to prepare him for the kinds of communicative acts and strategies that he will need if he wants to be a full participant in any oral event.
Board games have the potential to offer such practice. Over the last 15 years or so, board games have been actively promoted as such a solution. They are enjoyable and motivating. They can be constructed to answer spe cific syllabus specifications. They offer opportunities for genuine communica tion and real speech. They provide a transition stage between formulaic forms learnt in the classroom and the application of these forms in real life. They enable students to “use” lan guage, beyond mere “usage” (Wid dowson 1978:3).
Yet in many Asian societies there has been a tremen dous resistance to board games. Why has this been so?
This article is based on a research project (project RELATE) of the Faculty of Education, University of Malaya, carried out over the last four years, and involv ing learners from twelve sec ondary schools, five primary schools, and three tertiary institutions. The arti cle will discuss the development of board games to make them more acceptable to learners and teachers of large classes. It will discuss the prob lems faced by the researchers and
teachers in their attempts to bring board and card games into Malaysian classrooms for the teaching of English. The board games
The project began with the trial of a wellpromoted game, the “Gift Game.” For the uninitiated, the “Gift Game” is a board game with a picture of a poten tial gift in each square. There is also a stack of cards that identify people (uncle, mother, best friend, girl friend etc.). The player throws a die and moves the required number of spaces. The space he lands on will have the picture of a gift he is supposed to have bought. He draws a card that will tell him who the gift is for. He then has to justify why he bought that particular gift for that particular person. The other players decide whether the player has ade quately justified buying such a gift. Sometimes, the gift does not quite suit the person (e.g., a bicycle for one’s grandmother), and this would require more justification.
When this game was tried out in elementary and sec ondary schools in Malaysia, it proved to be a momen tary curiosity with learners in school who, after playing it once, got bored and had no inclination to play it a sec ond time. The game was more acceptable at ter tiary level. We realised that such games would be economical ly unfeasible for use in Malaysian schools. If a teacher spent all that time creating a game and constructing a minimum of eight boards to use in her class, she needed to get more mileage out of it. The proj ect therefore set out to look for types of board games that would be more moti vating, more economical, and therefore more feasible for use in large classes.
As we tested out the games, howev er, we realised that there was a differ ence in acceptability towards other games as well. What would be accept able to one group of learners would not be acceptable to another group of the same age.
One reason was the proficiency level of the students. If the game was not linguistically challenging, the learn ers got bored. If the game was linguistically too difficult, the learners soon resorted to their mother tongue or the language that was the medium of instruction, and the whole game was played in lan guages other than the tar get language. It was very important, therefore, that games catered to the language levels of the learners.
This would have been very easy if all learners in a class of 40 (the average size of a Malaysian class) were actually at the same language level. Alas for the poor teacher, this was seldom so! There were always some learners who were better or worse than the “average” learners in the class. This meant that there would always be learners who were either bored or lost.
Theoretically, the solution seemed simple. Let differ ent groups play different games. Wrong again! We found that it was in fact impossible to have more than two dif ferent games going on in the class at the same time. The only plus factor was that the teacher got enough physical exercise for the day as she darted crazily around the class.
One reason for the difference was the differing levels of western orienta tion of each group of learners. Many secondaryschool students had never played a card or board game before facing their first board game in their classroom. The teacher had to explain the use of dice and the coloured tokens they would use, besides explaining the rules of the game. As we tested out games in the various schools, it became quite common to have to begin a lesson this way:
You’ll see a plastic bag in the middle of the board. Open it. You’ll see something square with dots. Take it out and put it on the board. You will also see different coloured plastic pieces. Each one of you is going to use a different colour. Choose your own colour. Now look at the board. Can you see where it says “Start”? Put all the coloured pieces on that square....
Card games were even more diffi cult to explain, espe cially since the learners had no concept of turntaking. Imagine the initial problems the teach er faced as she went round the class, attempting to teach eight groups how to take turns when playing games. It did not help that the learners who had no concept of board and card games were also those whose language ability was low.
It came as no surprise, therefore, that language teach ers resisted the use of board games in their classes.
In the face of such resistance, we set out to try and
find possible ways of using board games that were less demanding for teachers. We felt that there was no point in producing highly creative and motivating games if teach ers would not use them in their classes.
Multi-level board games
One solution is to design multilevel board games— board games that would have the same layout but would chal lenge different groups of learners.
The game pictured in figure 1 see p. 87, called “The Train” (Gaudart and Samuel 1988), has a simple layout of railway tracks. It makes use of three sets of pic ture cards. One set, marked “A,” com prises animals; another set, marked “T,” has pictures of means of transportation; and the third set, marked “O,” has pictures of common objects. There are five possibilities each time a learner throws the die. He could land on a square marked “A,” “T,” or “O” and pick the appropriate card, or land on a square where he does not have anything to do, or land on a square that has a reward or a penalty. Exam ples of rewards and penalties would be “Miss a turn,” “Move back three spaces,” “Move forward three spaces,” and so on. The player who completes the course first is the winner.
General instructions on how the game is played can be given to the class. Then the teacher can change the level according to the ability of each group of learners. This game offers four possible levels, all using the pic ture cards.
At the lowest level, the board can be used for a vocabu lary game. The learn er reaches a square marked “A,” “T,” or “O,” and picks up a card. He identi fies what is on the card.
At the next level, the pictures can be used to generate sentences. Each player would have to make a sentence about the picture he draws.
At the third level, the pictures can be used for a guessing game. The play er picks up a card, and keeps it hidden from the others. He describes the pic ture and the others guess what he is holding. The first player who guesses the item gets to move forward two spaces, and the player describing the picture remains in the square he is in. If no one is able to guess what the item is, then the description is probably poor and the player describing the picture is penalised and has to move back two spaces.
At the fourth level, a player links the picture he draws to the previous picture. Players can decide before the game how many pictures (five has been a manageable number) they will link before starting over again.
Teachers have been carrying out these multilevel games in two ways, both ways involving grouping accord ing to language ability. In the first way, teachers have assigned games to each group. Having explained the way the game works, the teacher then assigns levels to each group and spends a few minutes explaining what each level will do. Other teachers have asked their learn
anyway, is not consoled by the temptation of having less work the following year.
The idea of multipurpose boards, therefore, is to design the boards in such a way that they can be used over again without the learners realising that they are using the same board. Here is an example. (See below) “The Snail” is a multipurpose board game for young learners. Because
ers to begin at the same level (the vocabulary game) and those who finish that, go on to the second level. Yet other teachers begin at two differ ent levels and challenge their learners to attempt the next level. Some teach ers use one way with one class and another way with another class, depending on the range in language ability of the class. Multi-purpose board games
The second solution has been the production of multipurpose board games.
We have found that if more than five or six learners share a board, their participation in the game becomes minimal. The problem then, is for the teacher to con struct at least eight board games for a class of 40. It does seem like a lot of work to spend a week con structing boards for a 40minute lesson. One may say that these boards can be kept for the following year. However, the teacher who is racing against time to prepare the boards, and knows that there is very little storage space available
it is kept simple, it can be used to play a number of games. There are dots and stars on various random squares on the snail. They are the “action” squares. Those who land on a square with a dot have to perform a task. Those who land on a square with a star get a free ride and can move forward three spaces.
G A M E 1
When a player lands on a square with a dot, he names something that begins with the letter “A.” The next play er who lands on a square with a dot names something that begins with the letter “B,” and so on. If a player is unable to name anything, he moves back two spaces. If he can name some thing and the others in the group accept it, then he can stay where he is.
G A M E 2
A player who lands on a dot describes something in the room or school, and the others guess what it is. Penalties like those above apply.
GAME 3
The player who lands on a dot turns to the player on his/her left and, using one of the formulaic expressions learnt (e.g., greetings, farewells, etc.), initiates a speech function. The other player responds and the first player responds to that response, if necessary. If both per form to the satisfaction of the group, they both move forward two spaces.
G A M E 4
This game has a slight variation in the rules. If a play er lands on a square with a dot, the player asks the other players a question. Whoever answers the ques tion posed by the player moves for ward two spaces. If the player lands on a star, any of the other players asks him a ques tion. If he can answer it, he moves forward two spaces.
G A M E 5
This game offers practice with num bers and requires pupils to use their thickest textbook. The player who lands on a square with a dot opens his/her textbook and reads one of the page numbers. If he/she is correct, he/she moves forward two spaces. Bet ter math pupils might want to add up page numbers till they get a number below 10. E.g., p. 159 (1+5+9 = 15), (1+5 = 6); the answer is 6.
These five games, for example, allow for the board to be used five times. But then young learners get bored if
they have to keep using the same board. What we have done, therefore, is to make each board slight ly different from the others, so that the learners think they are play ing a differ ent game on a different board but the teacher can do all the boards at once. Instead of a snail, other possibilities that have been used are a worm, a cen tipede, a snake, a butterfly, a leaf, a path leading to a castle or palace, a rainbow. Each group gets a different board. The teacher keeps track of which group has used which board, and switches the board for the next game. An easy way to do this is to number each board. Write the num ber on the back of the board. Number each group in class. The teacher then knows that if she plays Game 1, Group 1 will start with Board 1. If she wants them to play Game 2, Group 1 will start with Board 2, and so on.
A source that has been found to be very useful for these multipurpose games for adolescents and adults has been maps. These allow games to prac tice giving and following directions, shopping trips of various kinds, descriptions of places, planning trips of various kinds, working in pairs to find the shortest route to various places, and so on. Different maps could be used for dif ferent groups (maps from tourist brochures are especial ly good) and then switched among the groups for the next game.
It should be pointed out that these multilevel games do have their limita tions. In many cases, the board is only there to add spice. The game could quite easily be carried out without the board, but then it would also not have as much excitement and fun.
It is also true that it is very difficult to think of numerous games one could play on one board. Very often the game turns out to be variations of the “snake and ladder” kind. But my feeling about this is that it is better than no game at all.
Constructing board games
Teachers have also stayed away from board games because they feel that they lack the “artistry” to con struct the boards. Actually, all that is needed is a little bit of resourcefulness.
We have found that possibly the easiest way to make boards is to use what stickers and rubon material are available. Pictures from magazines also save the teacher from having to draw various items. With multipurpose boards, where it does not matter that boards look differ ent, pictures, stickers, and rubon sets can be spread econom ically over a number of boards. The rubon sets called “Kalkitos” have been especially useful for me. An example of a board that uses stickers and rubons is shown on page 89. It was, quite happily and eagerly, done for me by a sixyearold. So learners in schools could also help to construct their own boards.
On that note what about the learn ers designing their own games? We have found this to be possible only in a few schools in Malaysia. Ironically, most learners in those schools are upperintermediate or advanced learners. Weaker learners can construct games but not games that would provide language practice. Those teaching at ter tiary level might have better luck.
Dealing with the “fun” element
Many teachers also fear that there will be too much fun in the classroom if games are used. This is something that there is really no answer for. Teachers are aware that enjoy ment in learning facilitates learning. If, howev er, they still feel that learners should not have fun in the classroom, there is very little that one can tell them. We have found that in many schools where the teachers have resisted fun, the learners really appreciate any kind of activity that pro vides even the ghost of excitement and fun. It is therefore very much a “teacher decision.”
Judging answers
What has been harder to answer have been teachers’ fears about the inability of learners to judge whether answers given are correct.
In our research we found these fears to be justified, especially among weak er learners, who simply accepted any answer given as the correct one. They did not know the answer themselves, so could not judge the accuracy of the response. For example, during a game using “The Train” at its lowest level (the vocabulary game), a “black board” was called a “tree.” This answer was accepted by the group.
Conclusion
Project RELATE has currently more than 300 select ed board and card games. They range from grammar games to freerstyle, less controlled games. They include single, oneoff games, as well as multilevel and multi purpose games. All of them answer various aspects of the Malaysian syllabuses cur rently in use. This has been deliberately designed so that teachers would be persuad ed to use the games to teach different areas of the school syllabuses.
Most of the learners who have used the games have been positive about the use of games in their practice of English. The exceptions were those who found some of the games not chal lenging enough for their language level. Many of the learners wanted greater use of the