An Action Research on the Role of Gaming Techniques in Improving Students' Oral Language Abilities in EFL Online Classes

Speaking and listening skills as significant language skills provide a measure for evaluating the learners’ proficiency level. These skills receive more importance in the Iranian new educational system by the publication of new English books series. However, it is noticed in some of the classes that the purpose of mastering speaking and listening skills is not efficiently fulfilled. Accordingly, the present collaborative action research aimed to firstly identify the reasons underlying students’ inability in oral classroom-based activities and secondly provide and implement some suggestions to solve the problem. The study was conducted in a junior high school in Marand, Iran. The participants were ۳۶ female ۹th-grade students, who met on Shad application. The required data were collected using class observations, interviews, and students’ performance in language tasks. Gaming was implemented as the selected solution in a separate class planned for focused speaking and listening activities. More specifically, sentence-expanding games in different levels were used as the main method in these sessions. The findings indicated an improvement in students’ motivation and engagement in speaking activities, as well as their accuracy in making sentences. They also showed positive attitudes toward the use of these game-based tasks in EFL classes. The study provides practical implications for materials developers and language teachers.