Do you like games? When you transfer these to your learning process, your brain will sense your state of well-being and will start to trigger positive chemical reactions. You’ll learn everything – faster and easier. Including English!
„It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.“
Leo F. Buscaglia
And we agree completely. With children, play is an ideal form of learning a foreign language.
“It is important to communicate with the child, discuss real-life situations, talk, read fairy tales and apply English learning games into everyday life. We should not force children to learn in a standard way by memorizing words and sitting over textbook exercises. Learning does not equal “sitting over a book,” says Klaudia Bednárová, director of The Bridge English Language Centre.
From a child’s very early age, you can play English games and watch fairy tales in a foreign language with them. “If you get them used to it from the beginning, they will enjoy English and learn at the same time. Thanks to this, they are learning naturally. They will build the necessary habits,” adds Klaudia.
Warren Buffet cartoon stories
Search ‘English stories’ on YouTube or Netflix. For schoolchildren, we recommend the great cartoon series The Secret Millionaire Club. An animated mentor, the American investor Warren Buffet, gives a group of little friends practical lessons from the world of finance, money and business through adventures and stories. The series can be found at: www.smckids.com.
If you are looking for English games for kids, great online learning tools including playful videos (also with fairy-tales), songs, interactive tasks have been created by the British Council at https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org
and Cambridge English at https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/learning-english/parents-and-children/activities-for-children.
Or play your own English games with the kids. Create any activity that will inspire you and talk to them – all in English.
In addition to natural forms of learning, we also think of movement. It has a positive effect on children’s brain activity. Scientists have found that due to lack of movement, children’s brains are not absorbing the new curriculum. We recommend combining time spent with online learning with a walk in the fresh air and sunshine.
„Those who play rarely become brittle in the face of stress or lose the healing capacity for humor.“
Stuart Brown
Exactly. Even in adulthood, a game gives us room to forget about everyday responsibilities and stress, and fully tap into a world we once knew so intimately.
If you don’t like Scrabble or Dixit enough, it’s time to engage in English learning and create your own interactive English games. Do not impose any rules on your imagination. Think of your own games and try to speak English.
Learn something new – Completely new.
Is there anything you always wanted to know but didn’t have the „brain cells“ or time to learn it? Tips for creating your own things can be found in the online world under the abbreviation DIY.
Just enter your YouTube password and hundreds of instructional videos will pop up. For example: How to Improve Home Decor, improve cooking and baking skills, make home tools or baby toys, mobile cases, Harry Potter spells, decorations or, currently, protective and hygiene aids.
If you have some extra time, you can enter keywords like ‘DIY, best DIY ideas’ into Google. You will find many things that could be useful to you or your household.
Create practical games
Cleaning can also become a game. Just look at it with fresh eyes and decide which place in the house or apartment, or at work, you could beautify.
Announce a contest: Who in the family will throw away the most, old junk and give rewards at the end of the contest.
You could call the game Marie Kondo Day and get inspired by this well-known Japanese expert on tidy homes at www.konmari.com
Before you start this cleaning job, look at the basic “cleaning vocabulary” and communicate with your cleaning crew in English.
Have an English Evening
What if you made a full-English evening? You can proclaim English Thursdays at home and turn them into a family tradition. Anything you do, perform it in English.
Make a dinner on the basis of a new original recipe from YouTube, cook together and give instructions in English. Watch a good movie together or have a standing conversation about what you experienced that day, or prepare plans for the next.
Of course, in English.
“You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.” – Warren Beatty