The Disadvantages The Advantages and Disadvantages of Using Games a. The advantages

1 discipline issues, learners may get excessively noisy. 2 straying away from the basic purpose of the game-play activity due to inadequate rules. 3 if games already familiar, students might not get equally involved. 4 some learners, especially teenagers may find games are unnecessary and childish. 19 The teacher should carefully choose the right games in order to reach the goals. In a big class the teacher need to form the students into the small groups so they will not make a great noise. From the statement above, the writer can conclude that games could be applied in the classroom by forming the students into small groups. There are certain materials that cannot be communicated by using games. Using games in a classroom usually make noise if teacher did not give the instruction clearly. Even though there are some advantages and disadvantages of using games in teaching vocabulary the writer thought that this technique still can be applied in the class. The reason is, games lead the vocabulary practice to a communicative situation. By the use of games it will be easier to practice the vocabulary and it also boost their creativity. The disadvantages of using games can be solved by forming students in a small group and clearly given the instruction of the game. C. Teaching Vocabulary Using Card Games Card games are one of the effective ways teachers could use in their classes. Card games are fun activit ies that could improve student’s motivation in learning English, memorize the word and give the students a chance to use the word communicatively. 19 Miljana K. Stojkovi Ĥ, Reasons for Using or Avoiding Games in an EFL Classroom 1st International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics, May 5-7 2011 Sarajevo, p. 2. Teaching vocabulary by using card games is the effective way to reduce the monotony of drilling in learning vocabulary. Card games are a good alternative way in teaching vocabulary. Most of the student’s loves to play game, with the use of card games the students could practice using vocabulary they have learnt and communicate it with their friends. Teacher could make card games with a set of pictures printed on it. The pictures itself can be gathered from books, magazines, news paper even from internet. The teacher can also use the printed or photocopied card games from a book.

1. The Steps in using Card games

There are three steps in teaching vocabulary using games. The first step is introducing the lesson to students. The second step is introducing the new words that will be played by students. The last is, teacher begins to explain the game that students will play and let students practice the words. The games used in this research are adapted from O’Deil and Head book’s namely Games for Vocabulary Practice. The games used are, “Who, where and what?” and “Guess my job” 20 . a. Who, where and what? The aim of the game is to practice basic job and workplace vocabulary. Time estimated for practicing this game is 40-45 minutes. In practicing this game teacher should provide a set of card with a profession printed on it. Teacher also needs to make a list of key vocabulary that will be taught to students. 1 Warm-up There are some steps in this warm up stage for the teacher to follow: In the beginning before the lesson started, the teacher shows some pictures to the students of someone doing an easily 20 Felicity O’Deil and Katie Head, Games for Vocabulary Practice Interactive Vocabulary Activity for All Levels. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 90-93. identified job, e.g. a doctor. Then ask the students to identify the job being shown in the pictures. After they finish identified the job, the teacher ask another question to the students like, “Where does heshe work?” hospital for the doctor, school for the teacher. Also ask other question that related with the picture and the job being identified, for instance, “What does heshe use?” stethoscope, injection, bandage, etc. for the doctor, marker, dictionary, etc. for the teacher. Teach any word that related from the key vocabulary to students by mimicking or showing the pictures 2 Main activity This stage requires the teacher to divide students into pairs and each pair are ask to draw three columns with the headings Who, Where, and What. Next step, the teacher gives each pair an envelope containing a set of profession cards. Then ask students to sort the pictures into ten set of three: Who the worker; Where where they work; What What they use. When the pairs have sorted all the cards into set of three, ask them to write the words down in the columns based on the profession, the workplace and the tools that help them in work. The teacher just monitors the students on their work and gives a help if it is necessary. When all the pairs have finished doing their work, the teacher should give pairs a score for each picture correctly named and categorized. Then choose one student from a pairs to come forward the class and pick a job card from the envelope while the rest of the class