This article is pided into five parts。 The first and the second part is introduction and literature review respectively。 The third part is applications of game teaching method in the primary school English vocabulary teaching, including principles of using games and specific use of games in vocabulary teaching。 Next part mainly demonstrates significance of game teaching method and the last part is conclusion。

2。 Literature Review 

Previous studies clearly show the development of game teaching method。 Plato, a philosopher in ancient Greek, attaches great importance to the early education and he claims that teaching should be in a happy activity in his work Republic, which makes him the earliest advocate of learning in games (Ma 193)。

John Dewey, American philosopher, psychologist and educator, believes that students thrive in an environment where they are allowed to experience and interact with the curriculum, and all students have the opportunity to participate in their learning。 He also stresses on learning by doing or by experience and applies games in terms of inpidual interests and needs。 It is universally acknowledged that his ideas of applying games in teaching are extremely influential to primary school teaching nowadays (He 33-37)。

Also, Piaget, Swiss educational psychologist and biologist, puts forward that children should be educated through games, observation, and story-telling (He 33-37)。

In addition, Howard Gardner, an America psychologist, published “The Structure of Intelligence: The Theory of Multiple Intelligence”, it points out that the person’s intelligence is multiple, it mainly consist of the nine kinds of intelligence, and they are language intelligence, logic intelligence, spatial relationships intelligence, rhythm intelligence, movement intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, self-reflection intelligence, observation intelligence and existence intelligence。 Different inpidual students’ intelligence structure is different。 The purpose of education is to promote the development of all aspects of intelligence。 Game teaching method promote development of the students’ multi-dimensional intelligence through pictures, sounds, video to provide real situations for language learning, especially the potential intelligence they good at (Yao 102)。

In China, Liang Qichao, a famous reformism educator at Qing dynasty, proposes interest teaching thought and advocates that students learn in a happy atmosphere。 Besides, Tao Xingzhi, Chinese famous modern educator, comes up with the theory of life education, and advocates to combine teaching and learning with doing, he emphasizes that students should learn from doing (Ma 194)。 What’s more, Chen Heqin, a representative educator of game teaching method in China, had discussed the difficulty level of the games, the classification of games, and the relationship between games and age to enrich the theory of educational game (Yao 102-103)。

From all these previous studies, it is obviously that game teaching method creates learning environment adapting to students to help them construct a lot of meaningful knowledge。 From the perspective of teaching theory of subject, different subjects have different teaching contents, teachers need to sum up the experience in practical teaching constantly and design educational games is based on the teaching law of the subject。 Therefore, in primary school English teaching, the design and application of the game should be based on the teaching aims。

3。 Theory and Application of Game Teaching Method in Primary School’s English Vocabulary Teaching

3。1 Theory of game teaching method

3。1。1 Definition and classification of game teaching method

 As its name implies, game teaching method refers to teaching through games, which is a way of teaching by combining games into the boring knowledge, and let children learn from playing games。 Byne gives the definition to games as a form of playing governed by rules。 He proposes “games should be enjoyable and fun。 They are not just a persion, a break from routine activities, but a way of rendering learners to use the language in the course of the game。”