Gamification to strengthen children's motivation to learn english as a foreign language in the community development centers.

Abstract

Instructors require innovative teaching tools to engage and keep learners' attention in every class . This study airns to compare the efficiency of gamification in environments of software and traditional indoor games for teaching vocabulary to students in Communities Development Centers. The research uses the interpretative paradigm and the mixed approach of educational research methodology . The participants are 14 children attending two different centers located in Manta-Ecuador during July-December 2023 . The instruments used to collect information are contextual observation , interviews, and English language vocabulary pretest and posttest. The research team designed an educational intervention using software and traditional indoor games to increa s e participants' motivation for learning new vocabulary in the English language . The results show an increase in the number of new words leamed in both groups. However , the results showed that students leam more new words when playing software games compared to when they use traditional indoor games in the same period . It concludes that software games can reach higher effic i ency in the vocabulary acquisition process of cbildren attending community centers.