Developing young learners’ vocabulary retention through adapted Turkish educational games in EFL environment

Abstract

Games are significant intervention strategies most of the teachers utilise in their teaching process. As they supply motivating and entertaining atmosphere for students, they create a necessity for them to acquire the components of the target language. This study mainly focused on the significance of using games particularly including the suggestion of the adapted version of Turkish educational games to teaching of vocabulary for young learners in EFL environment and analysing their impact on vocabulary retention capacities of learners. Participants were 44 female intermediate fifth grade students divided into two groups as the experimental and the control groups. In the experimental group, students practiced target vocabulary items through adapted Turkish educational games while the students in the control group exercised them only with activities in their books traditionally. The study indicated that there was a significant difference between two groups in terms of defining and using them for particular contexts. Keywords: Games; teaching vocabulary; traditional Turkish games; young learners