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The Language Classroom: A Hothouse Where Play Can Germinate

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Spontaneous Play in the Language Classroom

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Abstract

This chapter discusses the setting for the research: short, intensive English courses for business people. Such a setting is rarely investigated in the literature to date. The chapter looks at the featured institution’s pedagogy and the nature of its courses, relating these to the investigative focus on play. It notes that the pedagogical approach embeds certain types of play into the syllabus—role-play and the manipulation of forms and sounds through language drilling. However, on the face of it, a number of contextual factors militate against the types of play which are the focus of the study—spontaneous, play-as-fun, making its occurrence that much more interesting and significant. The chapter then goes on to explain the research’s ethnographic approach.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more information on the Council of Europe’s CEFR descriptors, see https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989 (accessed 24.4.19).

  2. 2.

    See, for example, www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm (accessed 24.4.19).

  3. 3.

    A British Council inspection in 2012 noted the prominence of language drilling as a particular characteristic of BizLang’s approach and further noted the organisation’s use of a language laboratory for drilling purposes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

    David Hann

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  1. David Hann
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Correspondence to David Hann .

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Hann, D. (2020). The Language Classroom: A Hothouse Where Play Can Germinate. In: Spontaneous Play in the Language Classroom. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26304-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26304-1_3

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-26303-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-26304-1

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