Games teaching: Changed or unchanged?

The Teaching for Understanding Movement is an innovation in games teaching and was first introduced by Bunker and Thorpe at Loughborough University of Technology in 1982. The main focus of this approach is on the understanding of the games and the development of the cognitive experiences through teaching of tactical awareness. Obviously, it is different from the skill-based approach which stresses the learning of skills and techniques. Over the past ten years, the innovation has been gradually disseminated in U.S.A., Australia and New Zealand. The studies on the effectiveness of this approach generally reported that this is a new direction on games teaching (Booth, 1983; Stoddart, 1985; Lawton, 1989). At present, many PE teachers in Hung Kong still adopt the skill-based approach in games teaching. Therefore the introduction of the Teaching for Understanding approach to Hong Kong should be a completely new and challenging movement. In order to provide a more reflective climate for the teaching of games in Hong Kong, and if appropriate, to start the process of introducing a different approach, a survey was conducted to find out the teaching approach or approaches PE teachers used during games lessons; how they felt and if they accepted this change. Copyright © 1997 Hong Kong Educational Research Association.