The Impact of Educational Games on Enhancing Elementary Stage Students' Acquisition and Retention of English Vocabulary

Abstract

Learning EFL vocabulary is a difficult task so that teachers try as much as possible to facilitate it for their learners. One of the best strategies that can be used is educational games strategy. The goal of this research is to check the effectiveness of using the educational games strategy in enhancing English vocabulary acquisition and retention at the First stage of basic education pupils. The study adopted the quasi-experimental pre-post test control / experimental group design. The study sample consisted of 40 pupils in sixth elementary grade and was equally divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control one. Students of the experimental group learnt vocabulary through the educational game strategy, while students in the control group received regular instruction. Tools of the study included a pre-post vocabulary achievement test and a text course for grade six named Get Ready 6. The students submitted to a pre-post vocabulary achievement test and the results indicates that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group and the control group in the pre/ post-test of English vocabulary achievement in favor of the experimental group.