Article Review

Yolageldili, G. & Arikan, A. (2011). Effectiveness of Nabila binti Abdul Mukthi Using Games in 811501 Teaching Grammar to Young Learners.

Yolageldili, G. & Arikan, A. (2011). Effectiveness of using games in teaching grammar to young learners. Elementary Education Online, 10(1), 219-229. Retrieved April 20, 2013, from http://ilkogretim-online.org.tr/vol10say1/v10s1m18.pdf

INTRODUCTION

Objective The key objective of this article is to investigate the attitudes and practices of Turkish EFL teachers who are working in primary schools with regards to the use of games in teaching grammar to young learners of English. Apart from that, the authors intend to study the pedagogical usefulness of using this particular learning strategy according to the teachers perspectives.

Audience The articles intended audience is most probably educators of elementary level as the Elementary Education Online aims to contribute and transmit knowledge about elementary education. Furthermore, in my opinion, this article is meant mainly for EFL teachers. However, I do think that it might also be beneficial for English teachers of any level, provided that they know how to adapt to the opinions put across by the authors to their students levels. Moreover, I believe readers should have some prior knowledge or background of the different theories and methods in grammar teaching so as to enable them to understand the need of identify why the authors believes that games have a great pedagogical value providing language teachers with many advantages when they are used in foreign language classes (p. 221).

Journal Suitability The Elementary Education Online is appropriate for this article review because it is primarily concerned with broadcasting completed and on-going researches regarding theories, quality of instruction, instructional planning, design and technology from a disciplinary and/or interdisciplinary approach which are significant to the field of elementary education. I also deem the article in this journal suitable as it relates to my main course which is language education.

Conceptual/Empirical In my opinion, I consider this article to be conceptual. At the beginning of the article, the authors put forward their outlook on the effectiveness of games in grammar teaching. The authors then carry on by explaining two influential factors that need to be considered to

ensure the efficiency of using games when teaching grammar which are; the kind of games to use and the time to use it. At the end of the study, the authors state that the outcomes of the research differ with the ideals that they have of how games may actually assist grammar teaching as there are also other aspects to be taken into account in guaranteeing the effectiveness of this teaching method. I believe that the authors method of presenting the paper to the readers does correspond well to the definition of conceptual framework which is suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994, as cited in Maxwell, 2005). Miles and Huber described a conceptual framework as a visual or written product, one that explains, either graphically or in narrative form, the main things to be studied the key factors, concepts, or variables and the presumed relationships among them (p. 33). In this article, a conceptual framework is used to substantiate their main viewpoints with regards to the effectiveness of using games in grammar teaching and the elements that may manipulate their actual efficiency.

SUMMARY OF ARTICLE Ellis (2006) suggests that a traditional viewpoint of grammar may consist of only the presentation and practice of grammatical items. Nevertheless, as the world revolves, it may not be so anymore. Ellis provides a more comprehensive definition of grammar which states that grammar teaching may involve any instructional method that stimulates the learners awareness towards a particular grammatical structure which may help them to comprehend it metalinguistically in order to enable them to internalize it. Moreover, according to Wright, Betterbridge and Buckby (2006), games in language learning can be defined as enjoyable and engaging activities which may be thought-provoking to learners. Furthermore, learners may also be required to play and usually communicate with others in order to achieve a certain goal. Based on these two opinions, it seems that the authors of the article have an ideal perception of how efficacious games would be in facilitating young learners to learn language and its rules. Nevertheless, the authors do acknowledge that there are two major issues to be considered and well-thought out in order to achieve the utmost potential of games as an effective teaching strategy. The authors then carried out a questionnaire with fifteen questions to fifteen Turkish EFL teachers teaching in primary schools to find out their opinions, attitudes and practices regarding the use of games in teaching grammar for young learners.

RESULTS Through this study, we learn that in general, a majority of the Turkish EFL teachers believe that games are not only entertaining but they have a lot of pedagogical advantages which may engage learners in their pursuit of learning grammar rules. Most of the teachers agree that games help their learners to promote fluency, overcome anxiety in learning the language and help them to be more relaxed in their learning process. They also consider games to be a helpful teaching technique for their weaker students as the games applied may help them to feel more relaxed in class without being conscious of their language

limitations. This is supported by Schultz (1988), as mentioned by Deesri (2002), which asserts that stress in language learning may be up to a level at which it impedes with students concentration and proficiency which then will demoralizes them. Therefore, stressreducing tasks such as games may help them to be more at ease and engaged in a particular language task. These teachers also disagree with one of the statements in the questionnaire which states that employing games in a language class is time consuming. Furthermore, based on the questionnaire answers, the teachers deem that using games to teach language is one of the best alternatives there is out there to make instructions more favourable for young language learners. Nonetheless, the teachers questionnaire outcomes also indicates that although they have high regards of using games as a teaching tool to teach grammar, they find it to be rather problematical to find a suitable game for every grammar feature. Apart from that, the teachers also feel quite uncomfortable when they do not provide exact grammatical rules explicitly. In the end, both of these views may be the reason why games are not used in their language classes as often as expected. The final conclusion which we can draw from this is that although the general opinion on using games in teaching grammar is very positive however there are other aspects than the two main ones explained (game type and time) which must also be considered in deciding the effectiveness of games in teaching grammar to young learners.

CONTRIBUTION The data and information gathered in this study may provide advantageous insights to language teachers especially those teaching EFL classes on how to maximize the success rate of utilizing games in teaching grammar rules. I also believe that this article raises the readers awareness regarding the two mentioned major factors that need to be ruminated in the aims of ensuring that the implementation of games in a language class would really be beneficial for the learners, and avoid from it being a failure at the end. Nedomov (2007) supports this conception and discusses two similar basic attributes that need to be deliberated before choosing a game to be carried out in a language classroom to ensure its effectiveness. Firstly, teachers should ponder whether the game chosen is meant to avoid the learners from being bored or to be used as revision for any learnt grammatical element. Secondly, it is important that the game selected will not be a waste of time as some games might be too easy or too difficult for a certain group of students, as in this case, the young learners. The article also provides some new basis which can be explored further with regards to the other aspects that may influence the effectiveness of this language teaching method. I also believe that this article may contribute to the understanding of Malaysian teachers about the topic. According to Zarina (2002), for many language learners in rural areas, English is a foreign language based on how much exposure and usage they have in the language. Therefore, this article, which is based on Turkish EFL context, may provide similar discernment as this article discusses English as a foreign language as well.

FOUNDATION This article does build upon some prior foundation done by other researchers originating from Turkey. However, what appeals to me the most is the notion promoted by the Ministry of National Educations English Language Curriculum for Primary Education Grades 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 which affirms that games should be a fundamental part of primary school education because they are motivating, contextualizing, and natural activities that make learning meaningful (p. 229). I believe that perhaps this may be the reason why the authors have a supposed ideal view of the use of games in teaching grammar although there are external factors that play a significant role in whether or not the teaching method would be successful in a EFL class.

GENERAL CRITIQUE In my opinion, the article does build upon the appropriate foundation as the authors perceptions towards the usage of games in teaching grammar seem to derive from the aforementioned studies. Furthermore, the researches also appear to have helped the authors in constructing their understanding of the advantages that may be acquired through the use of this particular teaching technique. Moreover, I also believe that the authors did provide enough background information for the intended audience to understand the article. This is done by giving different definitions to the word game and also how employing games may help to ease the language learning process for learners, with specific focus on EFL classes and young learners. From here, readers may grasp the ideal belief that the authors have towards games as how I mentioned it before. Moreover, readers may also comprehend that the idea of using games to teach grammar to young learners may not be as effective as expected by the authors if some crucial points such as curriculum load and class size are not taken into account. Nevertheless, I do believe that there is a need for the authors to provide some sort of actual empirical evidence to prove whether the use of games can really be effective in an EFL class for young learners. This is because the research is mainly based on general assumptions, attitudes and beliefs of the Turkish teachers and not in actually implementation of the teaching method. I would suggest that the authors attempt to carry out another study of an EFL class for young learners which actually use games to teach grammar rules.

ISSUES In the article, there are some issues identified that may require some attention. Firstly, I find this study is rather small-scaled with only fifteen participants and fifteen questions. Although the authors mentioned that as long as the calculated reliability coefficient is higher than .67, I believe that the difference of .05 is rather insignificant to consider the study to be reliable. Therefore, I feel that the study would be more reliable if it is

carried out on a larger scale, with more participants and more questions for the questionnaire. Furthermore, I deem the choice of participants may be unbalanced as there are only two new teachers in the group. I feel that the differences in experience may somehow affect their perceptions and practices with regards to the topic. According to Rice (2010), teachers may exemplify the paramount productivity advances during their first few years on the job, after which their performance tends to deteriorate. As the author mentioned, there are a few aspects that need to be well-thought out in order to ensure the effectiveness of games in teaching grammar to young learners. If the viewpoint given by Rice is true, then the results may be different if the differences of age and experiences between teachers are more balanced. Another issue that surfaced is the other factors mentioned in the conclusion and recommendations section in the article. I believe rather than putting these reasons (curriculum load and class size) at the end of the article, I would suggest that them together in the section where the authors discuss about how teachers should be selective of the game types they want to use and the time estimated to be spent on each game as acknowledged factors that may affect the effectiveness of using games in teaching grammar for young learners. Nevertheless, the said issues may be a possible topic for a future study in this particular field of study.

REFERENCES Deesri, A. (2002). Games in the ESL and EFL class. The Internet TESL Journal, 8(9). Retrieved 26 April, 2013, from http://iteslj.org/Techniques/Deesri-Games.html Ellis, R. (2006). Current issues in the teaching of grammar: An SLA perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 83-107. Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research Design: An interactive approach (2nd ed.). London: SAGE Publications, Inc. Nedomov, A. (2007). Teaching grammar to young learners. Unpublished bachelor thesis, Masaryk University, Czech Republic. Rice, J. K. (2010). The impact of teacher experience: examining the evidence and policy implications. Brief No. 11. National center for analysis of longitudinal data in education research. Retrieved April 24, 2013, from http://www.urban.org/ UploadedPDF/1001455-impact-teacher-experience.pdf Wright, A., Betterbridge, D. & Buckby, M. (2006). Cambridge handbooks for language teachers: Games for language learning. (3rd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Dr. Zarina Mustafa. (2002). ESL or EFL? TESL or TEFL? (Discussion Paper No. 9995). Retrieved April 24, 2013, from http://eprints.usm.my/9995/1/Nina_1.pdf