Video games as vocabulary enhancement instrument in the 21st century classroom

Abstract

In modern era, the use and implement of a new tool in the English as Second Language (ESL) classroom is imperativeas mean of ensuring the effectiveness of the lesson.At the same time the lack of effective technique to enhance vocabulary possession among ESL learners may leadto failure during the learning process. Even though there are too much hideous stereotyping about the video games, but this research still believesin the positive impact that can be delivered by this tool. Therefore, video game is considered asa solid tool that can facilitate and cater the need of the 21st century learners who are craving for technologies. This study reveals the effectiveness of the video games in enhancing young ESL learners’ vocabulary in Malaysian context. It is being conducted in a primary school in South of Malaysia which involves two ESL classrooms. The first group was assigned as control group and the later as experimental group. To ensure that the data is normally distributed, a normality test was conducted. Based on the normality test using Shapiro-Wilk, it was found that the data is normally distributed. A parametric test of Paired Sample T-Test is being used to probe into any significant different between the pretest and posttest of the experimental group. The result shows a significant difference. Comparison between the control group and experimental group indicating that the experimental group outperformed the control group. This concludes that, video games are beneficial in improving student’s vocabulary performance.