Using Games as a Tool in Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners

Abstract

Over the last few decades, teaching English become a phenomenon in Saudi Arabia, especially to young learners. English is taught as a main subject in kindergarten and elementary schools. Like any other children, Saudis accept new foreign languages easily, but they get bored very fast if the teacher is teaching them using the old conventional methods and techniques. The aim of this paper is to prove that games are effective tools when devised to explain vocabularies and they make it easier to remember their meanings. This paper deals with a literature review of teaching English vocabulary to young learners using games. Then it discusses the importance of using games in teaching vocabulary and in what way using them is helpful. After that it investigates the practical implications of using games to teach vocabulary that includes the implementation of vocabulary games and some examples of games that could be used to teach vocabulary to children. And finally it examines challenges teachers face when teaching vocabulary using games to young learners.