2. Literature Review

Makarenko, the former Soviet Union educator thought that teachers should widely apply games in teaching process, because it differs from the ordinary teaching method in that it change the student’s cognition style. By playing games, students can make full use of imagination and independently look for answers.源[自*751^`论\文'网·www.751com.cn/

In English teaching, the research on games teaching is comparatively late, especially for Chinese educators. It began in the late 1990s. With the issue of New English Curriculum, the task of English curriculum began transmitted from exam-oriented education to students-oriented education, designed to inspire train the students’ interest. Fan Donfang put forward that game teaching should be designed to arouse the learners’ various senses, for example ear, eyes, hands, brains, to improve the students’ overall abilities. In essence, game teaching belongs to the situational teaching method. The Czech educator Comenius said:“all the knowledge origins from senses.” We can’t say that this sentence is true without doubt. But it embodies the essence of situational teaching method, or game teaching. Game teaching is truly designed for certain situation. And in that process, the students’ senses are aroused. Tian Li came up with the five principles of game teaching: with purpose, with feasibility, with fun, with competition, with control. Wen Qi had a preliminary study of basic model in the game teaching of primary English class, based on the requirements of New English Curriculum. This model is: warm up, lead-in by games, teaching new knowledge, consolidation by competition, the freely communicative performance. Compared with the forgoing theories of game teaching, this model has made a great progress. But when reviewing all these theories on games teaching, it can be found that none of them are involved in communicative principles, which is the essence of foreign language learning.