Playing away stress and anxiety: Exploring nondigital game-based vocabulary learning

Abstract

Anxiety and stress are the chief factors that handicap tribal learners’ cognition when learning the English language. Learners of English as a second language experience anxiety and stress for several reasons. The study showed that the greater the stress and anxiety were, the less motivation the students had toward learning the English language. The present study intends to mitigate the anxiety and stress of upper primary tribal students through nondigital game-based language learning in the classroom. The sampling method employed in this research was convenient. A questionnaire, pretest, intervention (nondisciplinary game-based language learning), posttest and feedback were used to collect the data. The data were collected from middle school tribal students (n = 100). The collected data were analysed through paired t tests in SPSS, and the results revealed that tribal learners’ performance improved after the intervention. The results highlighted the vocabulary progress achieved by the experimental group through game-based learning. The study concludes with limitations and implications for future research.