A Survey Of The Application Of Games In English Teaching In Junior High Schools

The thesis gives a survey of the application of games in English teaching in junior high schools under the framework of interest theory, multiple intelligence theory and the basis of mental characteristics of teenagers. Classroom observation, questionnaire investigation and interviews are adopted to analyze the condition of teachers'game-using, students'attitudes and principles conformed by teachers in game application so as to acquire the current situation and characteristics of game-based teaching in junior high schools. Factors which affect the game-based teaching of English teachers are found out through the results of the survey from the perspective of students, teachers, educational environment and systems. Corresponding suggestions are proposed to instruct the English teaching in junior high schools.Three questions are raised by the author for the research as follows: 1) What is the current status of games application in English classroom of junior high schools? 2) What are students'and teachers'attitudes toward game-based teaching? 3) To what extent are the games that English teachers often use accorded with the principles of game designing?Teachers and students from six junior high schools in Changsha, Hunan Province are chosen randomly as the subjects of the research. The author designs a teacher questionnaire and a student questionnaire to 100 teachers and 360 students and analyzes the statistics through Excel. Moreover, the author observes the teachers'game-using frequency, types of games, students'presentation, etc. through attending classes and has a comparison of the data with statistics from questionnaire investigation so as to get the problems in game-based teaching. The results show that the current situation of game application is not optimistic in English teaching of junior high schools. Many problems exist. Teachers are not very familiar with game-based teaching; they use games with low frequency; the games they use are not various; the rate of student participation is not high and they often disperse their attention when playing games.Finally, the author contributes some corresponding suggestions to direct and promote English teaching in junior high schools, including the following five aspects. Firstly, teachers should be given systematical training of the theories about game-based teaching to improve their theoretical foundation. Secondly, teachers should increase the types of games in English class to stimulate students'interest continuously. Thirdly, teachers should learn how to cultivate students'learning strategies when playing games so as to improve their self-taught ability. Fourthly, teachers should learn how to control the class, creating a better environment for students'English learning. All in all, teachers should keep on exploring and innovating, generalize all kinds of teaching approaches and design more appropriate games to make classes more colorful so as to improve teaching efficiency and students'English level.