THE IDEAS BEHIND THE ACTIVITIES.
Cooperative learning You will probably notice that, in most games, knowing the language is not the main factor that leads to winning; actually, luck, strategy and creativity play important roles. This has been done on purpose to foster a cooperative rather than competitive atmosphere, and to make sure weaker learners can also participate and win. Also, in some of the games there is no winner at all. Teaching, not testing The activities in the book are meant to give learners an opportunity to practise and experiment with language. For this reason many of them present a lot of input while requiring relatively little production in the target structure. This encourages learners to concentrate on processing the meaning of target structures instead of pressuring them to produce such constructions before they are ready to. Self and peer correction Our experience tells us that self and peer correction are often more effective than teacher correction in helping students to take responsibility for their own learning. Thus most of the game rules and activity procedures urge the participants to monitor their own as well as their peers' language production.
