Do you remember the moment when your child grasped with his or her feeble little hand an object existing in the house and started playing with it? Well, this is one fact that excellently proves your child’s creativity and ludic capacity. The little ones are driven by an extraordinary imagination which, adjoined with play, helps them discover the complex and fascinating world they’re living in. This is how they get to know their loving parents, their warm house and even their own person.
Many of us know that play is the prime purpose of life. The game is the major tool used by the little ones in order to discover the surrounding universe. This is why playing became an absolutely vital educational technique. For children, learning must occur in a playful manner. Moreover, the didactic material should correspond to the forenamed principle. As a matter of fact, it is preferable that the scenes and the characters represented in specialized books, movies and web sites to look like cartoons, to be somewhat fairy. And least, but not last, the teaching and learning methods have to be playful, flexible, stimulating and not at all boring.
The kids are extremely creative and have a great capacity of learning. But they must also acquire new knowledge through a learning process based on discovery. They don’t have to learn everything by heart. Like I said, playing is discovering. And that’s why the foundation of the learning process must be a ludic technique, and not a memorizing exercise. The least is not very effective. Usually, the information learned by heart is quickly forgotten and doesn’t persist within general or specialized knowledge.
The prime meaning of playing is fun. But playing is also an extraordinary way of making your child to get used to the idea of the (playing) rule. Every playful activity has a set of rules. Generally, the common sense rules organize the learning process and, furthermore, even one’s way of living.
How do the ludic techniques act upon children? From a logical point of view, playing stimulates the child’s curiosity, and makes him or her able to focus more during the learning process. Furthermore, focusing incites the overflowing creativity of the little ones. And the result is a bigger learning desire, a natural and relaxed acquiring of the new knowledge. In other words, the learning process will become pleasant, and not compulsory. The pleasant aspect of learning is essential. As long as the child learns things with pleasure you can count on the fact that he or she will always be interested in one or more school subjects.
When it comes to learning English as a foreign language, all the forenamed statements have a major relevance, and their observance is strongly required. When a child learns English, he or she filters the reality by means of an unknown or partially known language. And this is not an easy thing to do. Don’t forget that grammatical, syntactical and lexical English system is quite different from many other linguistic systems. Luckily, the little ones have a specific curiosity and a great capacity of acquiring knowledge. These are two main features that, adjoined with play, may facilitate very much the process of learning a foreign language.
The more playful are the tasks, the better will the children learn. The specialists say that children who are active players are also active learners. And this is a major advantage that every parent can successfully count on in educating their children.
