engleski

The role of creative didactic games in the process of language and culture learning

In the process of early language learning the emphasis is placed on the development of communicative competence, i.e. learning a language using concrete examples from a pupils's everyday life. In the Croatian education system the process of early language learning includes two stages: first educational stage includes students from the first to the second grade (lower primary school), while the second educational stage includes students in the fifth and sixth grade of primary school (higher primary school). Since children in this stage (to the age of 12) are in a concrete operational stage it is necessary for them to be taught a language on the basis of concrete examples and one of the good strategies for that is definitely introducing creative didactic games. Games are immanent or innate to children, and children learn faster and easier through play and playing games, they remember more information, time passes faster and they feel comfortable. Every game can become a creative and didactic activity if we adjust its content and objectives. Also, if the content or medium is language, it becomes a language game. Since the game is also determined by culture, children learn something about their own culture or different cultures through play, which depends on the language they are taught. That is the reason why research in six different primary schools in The Republic of Croatia was conducted, and it examined the role of language games in Croatian language teaching and their influence on the success in mastering grammar and orthography. Also, we measured the attitudes of pupils (N = 300) and teachers (N = 100) towards play as a teaching strategy, its use in Croatian language teaching (mother tongue), and the need for its implementation in teaching. As a result, pupils who learned through play had more success, and that students like learn through play, but teachers mostly don’t use language games in Croatian languageteaching. It is such results that show that implementation of didactic creative language games in Croatian language teaching will increase student’s success and motivation.

didactic games, language learning, culture, Croatian language, language games

nije evidentirano