The use of playful activities in the english language classroom: what difference does it make?

Abstract

The aim of this work was to verify to what extent playful activities are effective in the English language learning process. The relevance of this study is due to the fact that ludic activities are widely used in English lessons nowadays but there are not many studies about their real contribution to the learning process of the language. To verify that, the methodology used in this research was based on collaborative action-research in two 3rd grade high school groups at the Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica de Alagoas (CEFET-AL) in Maceió, Brazil, in the year of 2006. Non-participant class observations, questionnaires, recordings, field note taking and some experiments like traditional and playful activities were used during the research. The theoretical background was based on the study of EFL teaching procedures, playfulness, motivation, implicit and explicit instruction. The results obtained indicated that ludic activities play an important role in students motivation but do not guarantee successful conscious learning.