Fostering English vocabulary learning through gamification strategy. A preliminary study

Abstract

This study was conducted to establish the effectiveness of the Gamification strategy in the vocabulary acquisition in the English language in the students of the first semester at Pedagogy of National and Foreign Languages Program at Universidad Técnica de Ambato. A descriptive and correlational methodology was used, and as a data collection technique, a pretest and posttest of knowledge were applied. 73 students participated in this research study (36 students were in the control group and 37 in the experimental group). The results of the pretest showed that most of the students had a limited vocabulary in the English Language. Therefore, the use of the Duolingo learning platform was proposed as a gamification strategy to improve the level of vocabulary that students demand. Finally, a posttest was applied, which showed that the students went from a basic to intermediate level, establishing the effectiveness of the proposed gamification strategy (Duolingo learning platform) in the acquisition of new vocabulary.