Teaching/playing with English part 2

Memory game

To me, as a teacher, the most beneficial way of teaching English is having fun with my students. That’s why I’m using all the possibilities to play and give them the opportunity to practice language. Last time I’ve mentioned the game “Who took the candy from the trick or treat bag?” and now I want to introduce to you one of well-known game called “Memory” or “Memo”.

For those, who are unfamiliar with this game, I’ll shortly describe the rules. The game is designed for two player, but it can be freely played by one person as well as by the whole group. To play it we need a set of pairs of pictures with some objects. For example with animals or toys. Shuffle them and lay down the cards lay down in rows forming rectangle or square. To decide who will go first you can use the rhyme. The first player flicks two chosen cards and if they match can take them. As an award the player is able to have another turn. If the cards are not a match they are turned back over and it is now the next players turn. The game continues in this fashion until all the cards are played.

From the linguistic point of view, this game is one of the best to practice naming nouns and is very easy to prepare. But while playing, you can also enhance the abilities of child’s memory, because this is the main goal of the game. Additionally it requires concentration and observation.

While covering any topic of the week I use it to practice vocabulary in an easy and pleasurable way. For example when I teach children about jungle, I print pictures of animals which live there and play it with them. While playing we name all the words in the picture. Then they have some time to look at the pictures, locate the pairs and are engaged in remembering them. In my group of already 5-year-olds it’s a great field to practice many strategies that kids work out during the game. They get involved and focused to remember as much as they can. By constant repeating names of cards, while flicking them, they memorise the vocabulary unconsciously.

So, if you decide to spend some time playing this game, I recommend you to google “free memory game pintables”. This way you will find many different pictures to print and later on, play with your kid. I really enjoy playing it, especially when my students are better than me and win  From time to let your children set their own rules or play individually. You might be surprised how creative they are and you will have some time of peace and quiet.

Autor: Anna

Absolwentka studiów licencjackich Pedagogika Przedszkolna i Wczesnoszkolna oraz studiów magisterskich ze specjalizacją Wczesne Nauczanie Języka Angielskiego na Uniwersytecie Warszawskim.