should be easy to play and have some elements of language teaching beside being capable of entertaining the students.
And teachers also should look out the principle of selecting games before use it, so the games can be accepted by all students in the
classroom.
4. The Advantages and the Disadvantages of Using Games
a. The Advantages
There are many advantages of using games in English learning, such as helping the students to reduce students’ boredom
and improving students’ interest in learning tenses, make the
students feel enjoy and comfortable Andrew Wright stated the advantages of games are:
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1 Games help and encourage many learners sustain their interest
and work. 2
Games also help the teacher to create context in which the language is useful and menaingful. The learners want to take
part and in order to do so must understand what other have said and have written, and they must speak or write in order to
express their own point of view or give information.
3 Many games cause as much density of practice as more
conventional drill exercise. 4
Games can be found to give practice in all the skills reading, writing, listening and speaking.
5 By making the language convey information and opinion,
games provide the key feature of “drill” with the opportunity to sense the working of language as living communication.
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Andrew Wright, David Betterdige and Michael Bucbey, Games for Language Learning new edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984 p. 1-2
Besides, Rebecca L. Oxford and David Crookal stated that games can encourage good strategies in learning foreign language,
they are:
1 Games embody the communicative approach, the goal of which
is to develop communicative competence. Games provide active involvement of the whole person intellectual, physical,
social, and emotional and games also use all four language skills Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing
2 Games change the roles and relations of learners and teachers
in a positive way, encouraging learners to take a more active role in their learning process
3 Games
provide large quantities of input, which can be understood because of the meaningful and engaging context of
the activity. 4
Games allow attention to be given to language form as well as to content.
5 Games have additional affective advantages, such as reduction
of anxiety, increase in positive feelings and improved self confidence.
6 Games can make the participants encouraged to communicate
even when their knowledge and competence in the language is less than they would wish.
7 Games help the learners to identify more closely with te target
culture. 8
Games encourage adolescents and adults to once again play with symbols.
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Based on the statements above, the writer concludes that there are many advantages of using games in teaching the present perfect tense;
most games make learners motivated in learning English, games make the learners encouraged to communicate, relaxed atmosphere created
by using games; children remember, think faster and better, games to be a good way of practicing language for they provide a model of what
children will use the language for in real life in the future and playing games involves more interactions among the children and their friends.
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Rebecca L. Oxford and David Crookal, Simulation, Gaming and Language Learning, New York: Newbury House Publisher, 1990 p. 111-113
b. The Disadvantages
Games as the alternative teaching technique also have the disadvantages or limitations. The writer assumes that it is difficult
to use the games, because in using games, the teachers have to know the principles of games and choosing the suitable of
language games. The classes should be planned so that there is a minimum of formal drilling and a maximum of activities. Drs.
Soeparno stated that the advantages of using games; games need a big class to involve all of the students in that games, only the
certain materials are able to be connected by games and if the number of the participants are large, it can make a noise, so the
condition of the class is not effective; games also only used in a lefttime, not in all the time of the class.
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For numerous educators still feel that games ought to be utilized just for a brief time, to give the class a bit of taking a rest
from the monitory of boring, and a few educators think about games as an only trivial action Stephen Mark Silver.
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From the statements above, it can be concluded that; games are generally difficult to apply in a big class, there are some materials
of study that could not be communicated by games, games usually make a noise, many teachers still feel that games should be used
only for a short time, to give a class a break from monitory of drilling, and some teachers consider games as a merely frivolous
activity.
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Soeparno, Language Teaching Media, Yogyakarta: PT. Intan Pariwara, 1982 p. 64
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Stephen Mark Silver, Games for the Classroom and English-Speaking Group English Teaching Forum, Vol XX, April 1982 p. 29
C. Teaching Present Perfect Tense Through Games
