Game-based collaborative vocabulary learning in blended and distance L2 learning

ABSTRACT

Adopting the focus on form (FonF) practice model, the effectiveness of game-based collaborative vocabulary learning (GBCVL) was tested as a tool to develop vocabulary size and depth with a focus on dynamicity and nonlinearity of second language (L2) learner motivation. To improve the measures, a mixed-methods approach was used on a sample of 95 English as a foreign language (EFL) intermediate learners, who individually selected and played games for two consecutive terms with respect to their nonlinear dynamic motivational factors at the individual level. Drawing on the FonF practice model, the phonological, grammatical, and lexical forms of the motivationally selected materials were emphasized and contextualized as the treatment to find out their relationship with vocabulary size and depth. The obtained results showed a significant relationship between playing vocabulary games and developing vocabulary size and depth. The effectiveness of the GBCVL at benefiting from the potential behind computer-assisted language learning (CALL) affordances towards vocabulary learning goals while catering for nonlinear and dynamic motivational factors at the individual learner level was the main pedagogical implication of the present study.

KEYWORDS:

• Game-based collaborative vocabulary learning (GBCVL)
• vocabulary size and depth
• dynamic systems theory (DST)
• English as a foreign language (EFL)
• collaborative learning

Disclosure statement

The author declares that this study has received no grant and has not been funded by any agency other than the author; there is no conflict of interest and the author is the only person who has conducted the study; all ethical standards (e.g., participants’ rights) have been observed in the present study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Akbar Bahari

Akbar Bahari was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1976. He received a Bachelor’s degree in Translation from the Azad University of Gharmsar, Iran, and an M.A. in English Language Teaching from the University of Qom, Iran. His current research interests include L2 motivation, FonF oriented models of L2 learning, CALL with a focus on nonlinear dynamic motivation and applying the latest psychological models of learning into CALL. Details of further published articles can be found at https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4575-6480