Games as a Component of Teaching Foreign Languages in High School

Markova Anna Sergeevna Postgraduate student, Department of Theoretical and Historical Poetics, Russian State University for the Humanities 125993, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Miusskaya Pl., d.6, k.7, of. kab. 278 lirel@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Mamukina Galina Ivanovna PhD in Sociology Associate professor, Department of Foreign Languages No.3, Plekhanov Russian University of Economics 115054, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Stremyannyi Per., 36 mamukina@mail.ru Other publications by this author

*Previously published in Russian in the journal Pedagogy and Education.

Teaching foreign languages requires a high degree of participant involvement and interest as the learning process is directly related to communication and the transition to a different semiotic field. Such contact inevitably generates a borderline situation, which always, according to Yu. M. Lotman arises when two worlds interact: "one's own" and "someone else's" ^{[7, p. 200]}.

Games are considered by modern pedagogy and andragogy as an effective way to involve the student in the process, to interest, and additionally motivate the desire to complete the game successfully. Thus, in the article Games as a Method of Teaching Adults English, A. A. Shatilova considers games as an effective teaching method implemented based on the communicative teaching method ^{[12, p. 228]}. In the article The Importance of Role-Playing Games in Teaching English in Higher Educational Institutions, Z. K. Moldakhmedova, defining role-playing, notes that it "is a speech activity, both playful and educational, during which students act in certain roles" ^{[10, p. 9]}. The researcher emphasizes that "being a model of interpersonal communication, role-playing causes the need for communication in a foreign language" ^{[10, p. 9]}. The significance of games, using practical examples, is also revealed in the work Games as a Means of Teaching a Foreign Language ^[6] by A. A. Kadieva, and the team of authors P. A. Manakov and D. A. Zhilin consider even modern computer games as a means of teaching a foreign language ^[8].

However, the very essence of a game, not as an activity but as a process marked by conditionality, but giving the participant of the game an unconditional degree of freedom (J. Hezing) rarely becomes the object of research. This paper proposes that the game used should be considered from the point of view of its evolution from the rite (originally as a drama, a kind of literature) and the possibility of carnival (M. M. Bakhtin) transformation, which it gives to its participants. In this aspect, a game can be considered an important component of learning a foreign language (including in high school), which not only helps overcome the language barrier and engage in the cognitive process but opens up opportunities for personal development.

J. Huizinga, in the book Homo Ludens: The Person Playing, assigns to the game the role of an unconditionally positive, all-encompassing force. The author notes that the game is filled with a higher meaning: "At the same time, something is playing in the game that goes beyond the immediate desire to maintain life, something that makes sense of the action taking place. Every game means something" ^{[13, p. 23]}. In addition to the semantic function, the game has the potential to express free will while doing it at ease: "Every Game (Capital letter Y. Hezinga. Author's note) there is first and foremost free action. A forced game is no longer a game" ^{[13, p. 31]}.

Thus, a game simultaneously has the character of something conditioned by meaning (logically set rules and purpose), but at the same time, something that gives a person unconditional freedom.

This paradox can be resolved by analyzing a game's genesis and evolution from ritual action. We can trace this evolution based on the theory of literature on historical poetics. Note that this parallel is appropriate as in the syncretic era (V. V. Veselovsky), the ritual action was of a holistic nature; later, in the process of developing abstract thinking, the kinds of literature, including drama, stood out from it. In addition, J. Huizinga himself points out the connection between games and poetry, believing: "Everything that is poetry grows up in a game: in the sacred game of worship of the gods, in the festive game of courtship, in the combat game of a duel with boasting, insults and ridicule, in the game of wit and resourcefulness" ^{[13, p. 184]}.

With all the importance of this remark, we note that the situation is instead the opposite: both a game, poetry, drama, and epic are born as a sacrament, whatever it is dedicated to.

This is indicated by historical poetics (which, according to S. N. Broitman, was the fundamental discovery of A. N. Veselovsky ^{[4, p. 73]}), describing the state of art (S. N. Broitman adds: pre-art), "When it did not yet exist as an autonomous phenomenon, but the 'beginning' of future arts (music, singing, dance, theater, literature) and literary genera were in syncretic form and were a component of myth and ritual" ^{[4, p. 73]}.

We can say that games were also part of a syncretic whole, as the essence of a game is in transformation, in a fundamental change in the rules of the outside world and replacing them with their own, in an almost grotesque ^[1] incompleteness (until the very end) and to a large extent the variability of the final completion indicate that it is rooted in the culture of national laughter. And that, in turn, according to M. M. Bakhtin, is embodied in the carnival, which "actually became the reservoir into which the folk-festive forms that ceased to exist independently poured" ^{[1, p. 282]}.

Games thus experienced a process of separation from the syncretic whole along with other forms, embodied in drama as an art form, but not limited to it.

This idea is indirectly confirmed by L. S. Vygotsky's study The Game and its Role in the Mental Development of the Child, in which the researcher notes: "Action in a situation that is not seen, but only thought, action in an imaginary field, in an imaginary situation leads to the fact that the child learns to be determined in his behavior not only by direct perception a thing or a situation directly acting on it but the meaning of this situation" ^[5]. In other words, a well-known psychologist opposes the cognition of a certain object of the material world to comprehend an abstract concept.

In this sense, the game goes through the same process as the metaphor that evolved from binomial parallelism. According to O. M. Freudenberg, the disintegration of an integral (syncretic) image into abstract concepts "objectively gave rise to the emergence of so-called figurative meanings—metaphor. The former identity of the meanings of the original and its transmission was replaced only by the illusion of such an identity, that is, an 'apparent' identity to the imagination" ^{[11, p. 302]}. In the work of L. S. Vygotsky, such a process of transferring a real object to a "seeming" analog is illustrated by an example of a child playing a "horse," where a stick crowned with a horse's head figure becomes a horse. However, unlike metaphor, which deals only with abstract meanings, the game is closely connected with the real world. L. S. Vygotsky develops this idea: "Movement in the semantic field is the most important thing in the game: on the one hand, it is movement in the abstract field (the field, therefore, arises earlier than the arbitrary operation of values), but the way of movement is situational, concrete (i.e., not logical, but affective movement). In other words, a semantic field arises, but movement in it occurs in the same way as in the real one—this is the main genetic contradiction of the game" ^[5].

Thus, the game allows you to experience reality in real time, set by the game's rules. M. M. Bakhtin, in his work The Author and the Hero in Aesthetic Activity, cites the situation of the game robbers and travelers. The scientist notes that each of the participants in the game wants to live and embodies his role, seeing the world through the eyes of his "mask" (we add that M. M. Bakhtin believed that the "masquerade line," "farcical comedian" and circus should be attributed to carnival forms ^{[2, p. 196]}). Everyone's horizons are limited by the role they have accepted; from the outside, such a game seems meaningless, but for its participants, it is interesting ^{[3, p. 72]}. It is interesting to be able to go beyond your own perception of the world and take the position of another. The category of the other is one of the most important in the works of M. M. Bakhtin. It is characterized not only by the fact that the "I" is fundamentally opposed to the "other" ("the other as such" ^{[2, p. 384) but also by the fact that the "I" itself cannot become a person without the view of the "other," without the participation of a living soul, without dialogue. Moreover, the truth itself is comprehended precisely in dialogue as it "is not in the head of an individual; it is born between people who jointly seek the truth in the process of their dialogical communication" [2, p. 163]}.

The game, giving the opportunity to feel like "another," a mask, a double, reveals to the participant of the game "the possibilities of another person and another life, he loses his completeness and unambiguity, he ceases to coincide with himself" (this thought M. M. Bakhtin attributed to borderline states—including sleep—in the genre of menippee, but it seems to us that this statement is also true in relation to the game) ^{[2, p. 174]}.

In other words, games in the context we propose seem to be an element of cultural and social life rooted in the era of syncretism, embodied in art, in the traditions of folk laughter culture, and in the personal need to gain experience of the "mask" and the "other" to expand one’s own horizons and cognitive development.

In our opinion, games, in this aspect of its study, can contribute to learning a foreign language and become an important component of this process. To some extent, one's own speech in a foreign language is perceived as someone else's (let's recall the opposition "one's own-someone else's" by Yu. M. Lotman, which the scientist understood as an integral part of the formation of culture ^{[7, pp. 200–210]}), as well as written speech, reading require adaptation. In this case, the component that enhances otherness may contribute to a different perception of the language—not as something alien, but as "one's own" in another game space.

For this purpose, the teacher may not always offer strictly logical, serious tasks, but, on the contrary, those that need to be treated with a degree of irony. So, for example, going through the standard topic of a story about yourself, you can ask students to imagine themselves as someone famous.

The report may also have an imaginary situation: students are asked to imagine being at an international conference, ready to hear an important message.

Mimetic transformation (which in the mimetic act is not thought of as imitation but as a "true reincarnation" ^{[9, p. 27]}) is also required in the task of imagining oneself ten years older. Students are invited to "meet at the alumni meeting" and talk about themselves using the possibilities of different times of the English language.

A greater degree of freedom is given to students by the teacher's conscious violation of the conditional order of the survey. The person responsible is allowed to pass the baton to any person from his group. At the same time, a short, humorous dialogue often ensues between the sender and the receiver.

The use of objects in the classroom that students could perceive as playing also contributes to creating a favorable atmosphere. For example, the "question-answer" exercise is effectively carried out with a small ball; it increases the pace of speech and promotes participants' involvement and concentration of attention in the educational process. As in the case given earlier, the students can also set the order of answers.

Of course, these examples are not limited to using the game as a teaching component in foreign language classes. However, they give an idea of the possibility of using the game.

It should be noted that the teacher, in this process, takes the position of conditional "non-attendance" in relation to the students. Conditional, since, of course, they see and hear it. Moreover, the teacher's consciousness, of course, cannot encompass the minds of students. However, we introduce this term by M. M. Bakhtin to show that the teacher lovingly removes themself from the field of the student's cognitive activity, giving "purification of the entire field of life for him and his being" ^{[3, p. 18]}. The teacher thereby acts as the organizing principle, as the initiator of the game, and as the one who completes it—often together with the lesson, as the game permeates the entire educational process and is not just one of the activities aimed at emotional relief.

To summarize. We define a game as a point of vision determined by convention but giving the participant of the game an unconditional degree of freedom (J. Hezing). In teaching a foreign language, a game rooted in the syncretic era becomes not an activity but a special component that makes up the educational process. The game has the potential for transformation, which not only helps to overcome the language barrier and engage in the cognitive process but also opens up opportunities for personal development.