GAMES TO MAKE TEACHING ENGLISH EASIER

Teaching is not an easy thing to do because it relates to many things such as the teacher, students, and the necessary educational devices. Teaching can be easy if we, the teachers, have prepared everything correctly and can adjust the material to the needs of students and we can deliver it well (Not only what to say, but how to deliver it) so that the teaching-learning process can be fun both for the teacher and the students. Since teaching is not an easy thing to do, here I try to write what I usually do when teaching the 7^th grade students of SMP Islam Al-Ikhlas that is located in South Jakarta

Basically, their English ability is

good enough for Junior high school students, and it is where the challenge comes for the teacher. I have done many methods that involve students' physical activity so that students won’t feel bored studying in the class. In addition, I can also use games that include students to actively participate in the teaching learning process. For example, we watch an English video or an English song, then I pause the video and ask the students to guess the word or sentence said by the speaker, then I will give point to student who can answer correctly. Those who collect the highest score will be allowed to request their favorite song to be played in class, or will give them one star / love sticker as an additional point for their final report score. This activity can be done to measure students' listening skills.

To measure other skills, I use other games. For example, to measure speaking skill, I usually use the "hot seat" game. In this game students are divided into groups. Then a chair is set against the blackboard. One student from each group sit in the provided chair. Then I write a few words in English and the students must explain the word to his friend who is sitting in the chair against the whiteboard.

Besides that, I also used to use "crazy story" game to stimulate students' speaking abilities. The students sit in a circle. Then I tell them one sentence, then the student's task is to make another sentence to continue mine. Student next to the first student continue the story by making one sentence. Students are allowed to continue the story as creative as they want. With these activities, students will feel happy because they can bring the story according to their wishes and without realizing that they are actually practicing to make simple sentences.

Through interesting teaching methods, teaching and learning activities in class will be fun. Students will not feel burdened to learn English, on the contrary, they will ask us to play games again which will certainly stimulate their English language abilities whether it is speaking, writing, reading, or listening.