Using Cooperative and Competitive Gamification to Enhance Speaking Accuracy and Fluency

Modern-day technology is being increasingly applied in English language teaching (ELT). As such, the use of games – or more technically, gamification – is drawing significant attention as a theme of research. Meanwhile, cooperative and competitive learning – albeit having been in wide practice for over five decades – are still being investigated actively in varying ELT contexts. Accordingly, this study was an attempt to compare the effects of cooperative and competitive gamification on speaking accuracy and fluency among adolescent learners of English as a foreign language (EFL). To fulfill this purpose, ۵۴ learners (aged ۱۰-۱۵) studying at a private language school in Tehran were selected through nonrandom convenience sampling and homogenized using a piloted sample B۱ Preliminary test. Subsequently, they were randomly assigned to a cooperative (n=۲۶) and competitive (n=۲۸) gamification groups. Both groups underwent an ۱۸-session treatment by the same teacher using the same materials and games through the two aforesaid approaches. Once the treatment was over, the statistical analysis (two one-way ANCOVAs) revealed that the cooperative group significantly outperformed the competitive group in both speaking accuracy and fluency. The findings of the study suggest that both EFL teachers and syllabus designers may opt for cooperative learning with gamification in classrooms and materials, respectively, to enhance learners’ speaking accuracy and fluency.

کلیدواژه ها:

Competitive Learning ، Cooperative learning ، Gamification ، speaking accuracy ، speaking fluency