Eighth Grade Spanish: Using Games for Language Acquisition
In a foreign language class, an effective and fun way to learn and practice new language structures is through games. The main vehicle for language acquisition in our program is storytelling in both the form of engaging stories from our curriculum units and entertaining or hilarious songs from Señor Wooly. So, how and why do students use games to build language acquisition?
Using a variety of different games to learn new language structures is not only engaging, but this also reaches a wide breadth of learning styles, individual strengths, and student interests. There is a little something for everyone, from drawing, trivia, acting, singing, and competitive team games. Games are a fantastic way to lower the affective filter of students by taking the pressure off in a fun and accessible way.
First, we can introduce new vocabulary, verb tenses, and language structures and then practice them in a game with drawing, like Pictionary, or acting with Charades. Students can then continue to practice these new structures in a variety of ways, getting more repetitions through different modalities which helps further their retention.
After students have acquired a lot of input, they can begin applying the new vocabulary via output through speaking and writing. Games also work great here to lower the pressure in speaking and writing through a little competition or trivia. These are all incorporated in Spanish class at all grade levels year round to also help build rapport, classroom community, and include student interests.
Games can be used throughout the course of a school year to first introduce and teach new material, practice and get many repetitions of the new vocabulary in a variety of ways, and finally to circle back and review and assess material. The learning here is really meant to be subconscious: students are learning without realizing they are learning because they are so immersed in an exciting game or entertaining story.
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