The Importance of Educational Marble Games in Teaching German

Abstract

Problem Statement: By considering the innovations in the field of communication, the inter-relationship between cultures, and the developments in the world, the Ministry of Education has started to take measures for students to learn languages such as German, French, Russian, Spanish, Japanese, Italian, Arabic, etc., in educational institutions in addition to English. For example, two foreign languages are taught in the Anatolian high schools. Since more and more classic high schools are converted into Anatolian high schools, the need for dual foreign language lessons and the teachers who can give these lessons is increasing. The Board for Higher Education has introduced second foreign language lessons in the foreign language teacher programs, envisioned as three semester programs in order for language teachers to gain experience in the field of two languages. Private education institutes are drawing more students by emphasizing their instruction of more than one foreign language. In some districts of certain major cities, teaching foreign languages has started as early as kindergarten. In Turkey, in the basic education, primary schools, secondary schools and higher education institutes, German is the preferred second foreign language in general. The quality of German language lessons should be improved to encourage more students to elect German as their second foreign language. Purpose of the Study: The purposes of this research is to explain the development of the educational marble game, review the effect of the game on the success of learning German as a second language, and reveal how this lesson is planned. Observations were made, photographs were taken and reports were written during the implementation. A 24-item test was used as pre-test and post-test during the German course while they were learning vocabulary at Hacettepe University, Faculty of Education, Department of Foreign Language Education, Division of English Language Teaching. Method: This study is a quasi-experimental study. The researcher began to design educational games in the early 1990s to draw the students’  Prof. Dr., Gaziosmanpasa University, Faculty of Education.