I have been a tutor and worried about the learning disorder of my eleven-year-old student. English learning didn’t touch off my student’s interest until I drew on some games for my teaching materials. Edward, my student, hated to memorize the vocabulary so that I designed a matched game, such as apple to fruit, tiger to animal, and mallet to tool. Sometimes if space and time allowed, I would create some circumstance—easy and funny—for his brainstorming. For example, I ever made him into the desert, and then I requested him to write down anything he imaged. Once he forgot how to spell the word or he had not learned the word yet, he could ask my help.
After the matched game and the planned circumstance maintained more or less three months, Edward progressed in his studies. I was happy and surprised at his learning ability, especially when he started to ask for more vocabularies actively. One day I talked with him and asked why he changed his attitude toward English learning. He told me that he rejected English because he was forced to learn by his mother. In addition to this reason prejudiced by his first impressions, my rigid English teaching made him boring in the beginning until my matched game and the planned circumstance were carried out.
The experience of teaching English makes me know one thing—to enlighten students’ interest is more important than to give a lame excuse for their learning. Game can be the teachers’ best assistant.
