Gaming technologies in English teaching to adults: opportunities and limitations
We discuss the possibilities of using game technologies in foreign language teaching to adult participants in the educational process. We analyzed the main functions of games implemented in classes in a foreign language with adult learners: educational, motivational, diagnostic, corrective, organizational, developmental, educational, communicative, therapeutic, of intercultural and international communication, etc. We considered the most common criteria, which are the basis of typology development of game technologies in a foreign language lesson: type of activity, number of participants, purpose, complexity degree, form, method of organization, orientation to the process or result, used mechanisms. We described features of story-role, business, board and creative games used in classes in the process of adult education: “Alibi”, “Balloon”, “Job Interview”, “Taboo”, “Jeopardy”, etc. The use of games in a foreign language class corresponds to all the andragological principles of training: joint activities, reliance on the experience of the student, contextuality, individualization, electivity, awareness, learning results use, cognitive needs development, etc. We identified a number of restrictions when using gaming technologies in the educational process of adult students: relative complexity of preparing for games, lack of formal criteria allowing evaluating the actions of all students, insufficient psychological preparation of students for the game, etc.