Play Games or Study? Computer Games in Web E-Books to Learn English Vocabulary

• In Event: How Can Computer Games Change Text Comprehension and Learning?

Abstract

Introduction
Acquiring English vocabulary challenges English Foreign Language (EFL) Chinese college students, who typically learn vocabulary through rote memorization of lists of words, and consider vocabulary learning a tedious chore.

With Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL), many Web-based vocabulary learning systems (Ma & Kelly, 2006) are designed to make vocabulary learning more interesting and effective. Few, if any, CALL vocabulary systems use game-based learning. None use inference games.

When language learners encounter unknown words, they use lexical inferencing to guess the meaning of words, (de Bot, Paribakht, & Wesche, 1997).

In research on reading, inferencing is defined differently. To comprehend text, readers infer much implicit information. Inferencing is “the ability to use two or more pieces of information from a text to arrive at a third piece of information that is implicit” (Kispal, 2008).

Current investigators designed computer games where EFL students made inferences about a text using new vocabulary words. The rationale was to learn new vocabulary with deeper processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972), than in standard rote memorization vocabulary practices, and to learn through engaging, word-based game-play.
Research Question: How does vocabulary learning compare when: a) reading text online with new vocabulary embedded and playing web-based inference computer games, versus b) reading hardcopy text with new vocabulary embedded, using memorization lists and multiple choice questions?
Method

In this within-subjects counter-balanced design, 57 Chinese EFL students (age 18-21) received both experimental and control conditions. Each student studied four text passages in the control condition and four in the experimental condition.

In the control condition, students read hardcopy booklets with (a) text passages containing new vocabulary words, (b) a list of the new vocabulary words with their Chinese translations, c) English definitions and the parts of speech, and then took three multiple choice comprehension questions on the new vocabulary.

In the experimental condition, students read web-based text passages, with new vocabulary words hyperlinked with popup definitions and Chinese translations, and then played text-based computer games making three inferences using new vocabulary words. The game-play interface (Figure 1) allowed players to click on words in a lexicon to form sentences.


Figure 1: Game screen shot

Before and after the intervention, participants were pre- and post-tested on the new vocabulary words with the Vocabulary Knowledge Scale (VKS) (Paribakht and Wesche, 1993).

Results

Investigators computed means of the answers, ranging one to five, of VKS pre- and post-test questions, with one indicating the least knowledge of a vocabulary word and five the greatest.

Table 1: results


Participants learned significantly more vocabulary, (0.05 level), in the computer game condition (M 3.0 SD .91) than in the control condition (M 2.65 SD .76), F[1,53] = 4.22, p = .045). See Table 1.

Significance

Because of greater engagement and deeper processing, inference-based computer games are superior to standard rote memorization vocabulary practices with hardcopy lists of words and multiple-choice questions for learning new vocabulary.

Authors

• Glenn Gordon Smith, University of South Florida

• Mimi Li, University of South Florida

• Deoksoon Kim, University of South Florida

• Jack Drobisz, University of South Florida