Use of Digital Games in Teaching Vocabulary to Young Learners

Abstract

It has been an educational policy for the Turkish educational authorities to teach English as a foreign language from early ages of children. This research attempts to determine the role of digital games on enhancing English vocabulary and to com¬pare games with pen and paper practices. For this purpose, digital games on EBA (Education Informatics Network) platform were used for enhancing vocabulary teaching in a public primary school in Turkey. The study recruited 37 third-grade students from two separate classes. A class of 20 students was identified as the experimental group, and another class of 17 students was assigned as the control group. The data for this study was obtained by gathering information from pre and post-tests. The control group received English lessons without using games on EBA, while the experimental group used EBA while learning vocabulary. Independent sample t-test was used to measure the effect of digital games on the vocabulary learning of the experimental group. It was deduced from the findings that there were statistically significant differences in the mean scores of post-tests. The findings showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group and the statistical results were considerable in post-test. Findings indicate that digital games usage in teaching vocabulary is effective for learners to improve their vocabulary knowledge.

An Investigation of EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Retention and Recall in a Technology-Based Instructional Environment: Focusing on Digital Games

“…The findings of the current study are in line with Hazar [42], who examined the impact of using digital games on promoting Turkish EFL learners' vocabulary learning. His findings demonstrated that the EG outperformed the CG in the posttest, with significant statistical results.…”

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“…The qualitative analysis brought to light aspects concerning how the students' ideas generated the possibility of facial, vocal, or gesture recognition to solve everyday 3.4. Interdisciplinary Perspectives for studying digital citizenship Most of the reviewed studies present the approach of language and communication contents alongside those specific to digital citizenship (Anderson, 2018;Germeroth, Kelleman & Spartz, 2018;Hazar, 2020;Gezer & Anilan, 2021;Șahin & Gül Özenç, 2021). On the other hand, the integration of mathematics-specific content alongside digital content is the second trend noted in the studies reviewed (Higgins, Crawford, Huscroft-D'Angelo & Horney, 2016;Anderson-Pence, Tygret & Crocker, 2020;Ökördi & Molnár, 2022).…”

Sustaining English Language Education with Digital Educational Games: A Systematic Review

“…Thus, DGBELL focuses on vocabulary as one of the competencies. A number of 12 studies conducted to identify the effects of digital games in improving the English vocabulary acquisition (Chen & Hsu, 2019;Chandra & Kepirianto, 2021;Sagubay-Lozarito & Segumpan, 2022;Padar, 2022;Vásquez & Ovalle, 2019;Pahamzah et al, 2020;Tan et al, 2019;Guaqueta & Castro-Garces, 2018;Vélez-Agosto & Rivas-Vélez, 2018;Hazar, 2020). Based on the study by Vásquez and Ovalle ( 2019), an evaluation of the findings acquired from the vocabulary assessment, learners' and educators' records revealed that following the intervention of a digital game on English vocabulary, the learners could acquire a considerable amount of vocabulary.…”