The educational game as a technique for the development of non-linguistic students foreign-language speech activity

The educational game as a technique for the development of non-linguistic students foreign-language speech activity

Eremina N.V., Tomin V.V.

Orenburg State University, Orenburg, Russia

Education faces the challenges of modern society, which is in high demand for effective tools for teaching foreign languages at a non-linguistic university.

Today the main approach applied is a combination of traditional and intensive methods relying on a functional-communicative linguodidactic model. In the context of learning a foreign language, students not always have an opportunity for speech practice. The peculiarity of the discipline is that communication is the goal and means of learning.

Thus, it is required to frame out the imaginary activities as an operational background of the communication (as means), and to show the necessity of speech acts, without which it is impossible to reach the goals of such activity.

It is shown that the most productive way to arrange group communication in class is the educational plot-based roleplaying game.

Being a methodical technique belonging to the group of active methods of teaching practical knowledge and skills, yet, it is one of the forms of the speech situation organization, used for training purposes.

However, the article describes an attempt to prove the advantages of a polylogical form of communication over the dialogic one.

It was discovered that the number of game roles influenced the nature of the participants' verbal interaction and the level of their overall involvement. Besides, regular role-playing in class allowed to raise the general learning level of most students gradually.

The obtained results, conclusions, and recommendations allow more extensive use of role-playing for a foreign language learning and upbringing of students.

Key words: speech activity, foreign language, role-playing game, gamification, methodical technique, interaction.

Introduction

A modern approach to the search for a practical methodology for teaching foreign languages in a non-linguistic university is a combination of traditional and intensive teaching methods based on a functional-communicative linguodidactic model. The new educational paradigm requires a rethinking of linguistic problems in terms of language acquisition processes in various educational settings. In the educational process, it becomes necessary to take into account such principles as suggestiveness and visualization, the use of multimedia tools in practical classes, communicatively-oriented teaching materials, as well as the development of a holistic system for teaching students of non-linguistic specialties how to speak on professional topics.

One of the most effective means of unlocking the creative potential of students both, in the native and foreign languages, is to teach to communicate. To teach students to naturally communicate in a foreign language in the context of the educational process is a complex and ambiguous problem. It is not a demand (when the student must speak in a foreign language) but the need for the real communication that stimulates natural speech.

Theoretical background

Teaching experience shows that the statements of the students during the conversation when discussing any question, get a natural character if the activities are organized within the group communication [14]. Even though, along with other scientists, professors of foreign languages department of Orenburg State University have taken an attempt to prove the advantages of a polylogical form of communication over the dialogical one, the problem of training the group of verbal interaction remains unsolved [3].

Currently, the individual forms or work in pairs, realized in monologue and dialogic speech, prevails in the class. Teaching foreign language communication scarcely achieves to the full its learning, socio-psychological and educational functions; communication is carried out mainly in such organizational forms as teacher-student; teacher-group; sometimes students-student, and very rarely students-students.

Meanwhile, in natural communicative situations, in the process of educational, labor, and social activities, a person is much more likely to encounter a polylogic form of communication than a dialogical one. Recently, the problem of training of group communication has attracted much attention of scientists, practicing teachers, psycholinguists, and sociolinguists from the UK, the USA, Germany (G. Faerch, G. Caspar, I.K. Schwerdtfeger, F.M. Carton, H.H. Clark, T.B. Carlson, R.L. Allwright, N.Edmondson, A. Cohen, R. Chesterfield, R. Ellis, D.Gardner, D. Nunan).

Per them, the level of foreign language knowledge is mostly due to the quantitative and qualitative side of the speech interaction. It is determined by the contribution that students make to an unprepared speech during the discussion of the questions posed [11].

Discussion

In the context of learning a foreign language, students not always have an opportunity for speech practice. Often, such forms as an explanation of a new or poorly understood material, training, homework check-out, etc. take most of the time in the class. It is estimated that, on average, a teacher in a lesson speaks about half, and sometimes 2/3 of the study time [4]. Obviously, the group form of work cannot completely handle the task to increase speech practice, but it can greatly stipulate it.

We agree with the opinion that the most productive way to organize group communication in class is a training game [1]. Here, the information obtained is analyzed to make a united, well-discussed, and weighted decision. Training games as a way of gradual step-by-step solution of communicative tasks substantially contribute to the enhancement of students' speech activity in learning to communicate in a foreign language. However, to achieve an adequate level of verbal cooperation, it is not enough only to choose how to organize group communication, one also needs to involve the appropriate content-semantic basis of speech activity, which would be close, accessible and interesting to students.

As the experience of teaching a foreign language in high school proves [6], the educational role-playing game, built on the action-packed storylines, best meets these requirements. The peculiarity of the discipline is that communication is the goal and means of learning [16]. It is, therefore, necessary to provide all facilities to the process of communication to be rather constant.

Unfortunately, we must note the fact that the communication in a foreign language in the classroom is very limited, not every student has a chance to speak, and there are cases of evasion of communication for fear of making a mistake. Considering all the above, we believe that the gamification of the educational process can settle many of these «bullet points.»

It should be noted that the use of games in education is still the cause of much debate and controversy. Over the years, the game, as a learning tool, has not been given due attention. For a very long time, the game was considered only as entertainment, fun, or as a means of physical development. Up until Froebel, pedagogics had ignored the game as an educational essence, referring to it only as fun rather than a learning tool. Later, following Spencer's theory, scholars suggested using games for educational purposes [13].

The subject of study in this article is a roleplaying game - methodical technique belonging to the group of active methods of teaching practical knowledge of a foreign language. Its introduction into the educational process contributes to the achievement of learning objectives of dialogical speech, to the extension of monologic statements and group interaction, to the formation of skills and abilities of self-expression of ideas, and the education and upbringing of students employing a foreign language [8].

Role-play is one of the forms of the speech situation organization, used for training purposes. The core of the role-playing game comprises the organized pool of verbal communication among students following the roles distributed between them and the game plot. The obtained results, conclusions, and recommendations allow wider use of role-playing for a foreign language learning and upbringing of students. However, certain features and specifics of the methodical tool application in the class are not thoroughly studied. It leads to the fact that in the practice of some teachers, a role-playing game is used only at the initial stage of training. At secondary and high school, it is used rarely and rather in monotonous and repetitive forms; the genuine communication of students does not always employ the exchange of remarks; game chat, and self-produced speech activity is often replaced by a literal playback of the pre-learned text [9].

We should also note that for the organization of educational gaming, it is important to create the conditions for the implementation of such a task, which would promote not only joining the phrase but the interaction of partners since communication is precisely the interaction of the participants [15]. We suppose the solution to be connected with the study of communication patterns appearing in cooperation; the definition of the characteristics of partners' speech interaction; the outline of the limitations imposed by a foreign-speaking on the form and content of verbal communication; the search for ways to overcome these restrictions and to improve students' «self»-component in statements production.

The analysis of the teaching practices and the theoretical background [2; 12; 17] incited the hypothesis that the role-play to be used effectively in a foreign language class in high school, in compliance with the basic provisions of the leading activity theory and the contents of age periods of students' development, as well as with the researches of communication and speech activity.

According to this assumption, our work has contemplated determining the forms of the roleplaying games in the auditorium, identifying features of the organization of educational and speech communication of students in the role-play, defining means to facilitate foreign-language speech activity in the gaming communication. The purpose of learning a foreign language as a means of communication, thus, dictates the need for proper training of communication: either official, business, professional or informal, general, for everyday use.

In real life, there are many situations of communication, where the subject (the speaker), like their interlocutors, acts in one or another social role. Consequently, there are several types of roleplaying games [7]:

- theatricalization (dramatization);

- situational role-playing game;

- business game;

- integrated.

The use of the role-playing games in the auditorium creates conditions for stimulation, regulation, and maintaining students' cognitive and self-activity, development of their critical thinking, and creativity. It also provides the opportunity for future specialists in training business communication in the language. student thinking foreign language game

The experimental data gained during our research witness the following forms of role-playing to be possible and most likely effective in foreign language classes:

- a role-playing game of everyday content (speech etiquette and culture of behavior);

- a story-based role-playing game of daily chores content;

-an imitation role-playing game of cognitive content;

- an imitation role-playing game of world outlook content;

- an imitation business game.

Organizing communication within a game, we proceed from the fact that speech activity is the complex of speech acts included in any cooperation and subordinated to its purpose [10]; in game circumstances speech acts are necessary for mastery in imaginary activities, its planning, and coordination of partners' efforts.

Thus, for the proper organization of role-playing games, it is required to frame out the substance of the imaginary activities, i.e., the operational background of the communication, as well as to show the necessity of speech acts, without which it is impossible to reach the goal of such activity.

Results

The experiment showed that the number of game roles influenced the nature of the participants' verbal interaction and the level of their overall involvement by the proportional curve (Fig. 1). The engagement coefficient (Ei) data were obtained with the non-parametric statistical analysis elaborated by the authors on the analogy of «employee engagement» as in the Gallup Q12 Survey [5].

Polylogue, compared to dialogue, amounts more steady distribution throughout the interrogatives among each participant and marks the range of engagement indices from E=5.7 (daily chores content) up to E=9.2 (business or professional content), p<0.01. This also explains the well-known futility of trying to achieve a uniform number of questions and answers for each participant of dialogue without disrupting the natural flow of the communication.

The naturalness of dialogic communication, with min E=3.6 and maxE=7.2, p<0.01, gradually enhanced if one party of the game playing their role had reported something, reasoned, urged, calling for actions, while the other had been asking, inquiring, appraising, and reacting on the opponent's requests. For educational purposes, it was essential to diversify the communicative types of phrases of each participant during the game.

Figure 1 - The level of the participants' engagement in speech activity due to game content and number of roles

In the dialogical communication, each remark was accompanied by a reciprocal reaction, facing back directly to the student who uttered it. In poly- logue, phrases not necessarily implied or provoked a response, which could be otherwise addressed to other parties. This is also significant and should be considered for the organization of verbal communication.

The game appeared rather close to natural communication if a student applied typical ways of verbal interaction. In the gaming communication, they also improve the ability to catch, develop and correct idea of the interlocutor, to satiate their statements with appraising remarks, to respond not only with speech acts of different intent types but also with pauses, gestures, facial expression, and other prosodic and extralinguistic means.

The correlation of Ei with the gaming communication form and content alongside the relevant phrase quantity is presented in Table 1, where (+) stands for any statements and (?) is any question produced. (R) is reaction here, which reflects any relevant response of any party involved in the game communication to any phrase either verbally or in any other way. Quantity (Qty) of phrases produced is the average number of all foreign-language speech units per each student per one role-playing game with time limits of no more than 20 minutes during a class.

Nevertheless, an important task was to achieve variance and self-production of statements by students in game situations. For this, they developed the ability to independently expand the phrase with additional structures, attributive and adverbial groups; to change the logical sequence of phrases and responses; to use in their speech units self- discovered facts and information.

As a result, the game participants have been moving away from the text-sample, which they relied upon at the beginning of learning. They have changed the mode of communication under the suggested game circumstances. Some speech patterns and verbal support were used to control and modify their speech, also considering the individual characteristics of students. Depending on the success of foreign language mastering, game communication was either reproductive (imitative), conventional (semi-creative, pre-natural), or natural (creative).

Students with low mastery of a foreign language used the reproductive method of speech activity. Their task was to reproduce the sample-text in game situations. Intermediate students had to add into the sample-text any additional elements, change the sequence of phrases, make other alterations. Verbal communication of students with sufficient and advanced levels of a foreign language was more creative; participants of the game took the initiative and showed off their ability to be independent in a foreign language speech activity. Regular organization of role-playing in a foreign language class allowed to raise the learning level of students in general gradually.

The effectiveness of the role-play as a methodological technique training increased if the teacher had correctly planned the duration of the participants' foreign-language verbal communication. The experimental measurements discovered the optimal timing of the game not to exceed 20-25 minutes, showing the highest productivity in the second and third quarters of the interaction.

Table 1 - The correlation of students' engagement in the speech activity with the game form and content

Conclusions

The experimental research has shown that the role-play may be used effectively for foreign language lessons in high school if the basic provisions of the leading activity theory and the study of communication and speech activity problems are considered. The application of this technique can successfully solve educational and pedagogical tasks.

The increasing complexity of role-playing games within one theme, as well as in the transition from one stage to another (from course to course), aims primarily at forming and developing of various speech activities. This process is accompanied by a gradual «boosting» of students' speech activity, which reaches its culmination in the world outlook and business games. It also brings this activity near the real conditions and provides maximum readiness of students (including linguistic and communicative competence) to participate in the practice of real foreign-language communication. The raising of speech activity skills and competence may be achieved by introducing a native speaker into a play (which also contributes significantly to the increase of the engagement index) and by the gradual exclusion of the conventions out of the simulated learning situation.

Moreover, the principle of combining roleplaying with the practice of real communication seems quite reasonable. Considering today's requirements of continuing education, together with the principle of the intensity of speech activity practices while teaching communication, it appears appropriate to introduce role-playing games, involving native speakers if possible into the extracurricular process (extracurricular free time, holidays, vocational practice) - either short or long term, individual or group.