Abstract:

The author describes her own experience in foreign language training at a non-linguistic university. The main aims of the work were to support foreign language learning motivation and to make educational process more interesting for the students. The main attention is drown to the choice of different games: it is not a random one, but is connected with the topics studied by the students. For example, such topic as “appearance and character of a person” is connected with the game “Guess who” in which the students describe famous people. The other examples are given, such as games like “Mafia”, “Alibi”, “Bluff club” and others. The main idea was to demonstrate to the students how they could use their foreign language skills and knowledges in different situations. The author also draws attention to gamification using Internet resources. The techniques of working with them is briefly described. The author suggests her own methodology of didactisation some of resources in the frame of computer oriented language learning. It is also demonstrated how to use those Internet sites, which are addressed to native speakers but not to foreign-language students. Different ways of games are described according to in which year are the students. The games for those who are in the last two years are more professionally oriented unlike games for the first- or second year students. The integration of game based learning was implemented in the foreign language training practice and the author was observing this process during some years. The result was that the students realized the possibilities of using foreign language for solving communicative tasks. The main conclusion drawn is the following: games and role-plays can influence the educational process positively if students get a possibility to implement language knowledge and skills in situation that are more interesting than ordinary exercises.

Keywords:

Foreign language teaching and learning, gamification, computer oriented language learning, games and role-plays in education, communicative approach.