Level up your Pronunciation: Impact of a Mobile Game
David Malcolm Berry
Abstract
This paper investigates the effectiveness of students playing the Spaceteam ESL video game to enhance their pronunciation of English words and sentences. To achieve this goal, the researcher conducted a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest research design. The formation of the experimental group and control group employed the practice of convenience sampling. The experimental group experienced playing the selected mobile game during a weekly EFL class while the control group did not implement any mobile game during class time. Instead, the other students engaged in analog pronunciation games that paralleled the mobile games in terms of opportunities for language and pronunciation, but just in a different medium. The student participants in both the control and experimental groups were given a pretest before the treatment and a posttest after the treatment. These tests, along with qualitative measures, namely an interview and a questionnaire, revealed relevant results. The data illustrated that the experimental group showed significant improvements in their pronunciation skill. Thus, the students' participating in the digital experimental group significantly benefitted from playing the mobile game, Thus, mobile gameplay can be considered an effective instructional tool, which can be used as an alternative resource in the EFL class where pronunciation is being taught as a learning objective.