DIDACTIC GAME AS A METHOD OF TEACHING CHILDREN IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The article reveals gaming techniques in teaching English at the
initial stage of teaching English to preschoolers.
Teaching younger students a foreign language is caused by the
desire to use the potential of the age most favorable for mastering
the language. Preschool age is the most favorable for learning a
foreign language. The plasticity of the natural mechanism of
language learning by young children, imitation abilities, natural
curiosity and the need for new knowledge, the absence of a
“frozen system of values and attitudes,” as well as the so-called
“language barrier” promotes the practical solution of the tasks
facing learning English.
Didactic games are used to broaden horizons and cognitive
activity, they form specific skills and abilities necessary for
practical activities, and general education skills are developed
during their implementation.
Didactic games perform many functions in the process of child
development, facilitates the learning process, helps to master the
material, develops the necessary competencies. Therefore, the
game, being the main activity of the child, allows overcoming
most of the difficulties associated with the conditional nature of
foreign language communication and enhancing the positive
impact of a foreign language on the development of a personality.
The abundance of game situations, fairy tales creates an
atmosphere of joy, creativity, the favorable psychological climate
in the classroom.
There is a good reason to highlight the purpose of using games in
the classroom foreign language:
1) the development of specific speech skills;
2) development of necessary abilities and mental functions;
3) cognition (in the formation of the actual language);
4) memorization of speech material.
With the help of educational games, children learn to think
independently, to use their knowledge in various conditions
following the task.
Many educational games teach children to find characteristic
signs in objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, to
compare, group, classify objects according to certain signs, to
draw correct conclusions, to summarize. Many studies are
devoted to the theme of the game and its influence on the
development of a preschooler’s child. (L.S. Vygotsky, A.N.
Leontiev, S.L. Rubenstein, B.G. Ananyev, D.B. Elkonin).
Teachers create whole systems of educational games (F. Frebel,
M. Montessori, E.I. Tiheeva, Z.M. Boguslavskaya, E.O.
Smirnova, M. Z. Biboletova, Trubanova N. N.).
As a result, a study was conducted at the “English Stars”
children’s center, where six preschool children aged five years
studied. The following games were used during the lessons:
“Who is in the house?”, “Find the card,” “On the farm,” “What
can you see?”, Ball game “Hello! Good-bye! ”, Counts “One Fox,
Two Foxes … ”, song-game: “Walking, walking” as well as
dramatizing games“ Goldilocks and the three bears,” “Turnip.”
After using the educational game, the kids fixed lexical material
on topics-figures, animals, family members, fairy tales, colloquial
structures I can see …, This is …, Give me …, familiarity phrases.
By the end of the training, the majority of pupils have
communicative and cognitive competencies, monologue,
dialogical skills in the framework of the program; they can make
4-7 sentences about themselves, their family, friend, favorite toy,
describe an animal, a subject.
One of the effective methods of teaching communication is an
educational game, because it brings speech activity closer to
natural norms, helps develop communication skills, promotes
effective processing of language program material, provides
practical instruction in teaching, helps to eliminate indifference,
boredom, and formalism from the educational process – the
school. Didactic games in a group of children have inexhaustible
possibilities of recreating the most diverse relationships that
people enter into in real life.
Key words: preschool education, English, game, technique