Use of Emojis for Vocabulary Enhancement

Abstract

Vocabulary learning using emojis is fun and would enable the expanding of students’ knowledge on words be it previous learnings or new sets of words. This integration in cloze tests makes the level of vocabulary skills increase. Compared to traditional or simple cloze test where students shall supply and fill in the missing words from a pool of words, this innovative cloze test presents emojis as representation of the missing words that the students will supply to complete the thought of the sentence and the paragraph. To ascertain such contention, this study explored the effectiveness of the use of emojis to enhance vocabulary skills of Grade 10 students. The researcher employed quasi-experimental research design to examine the effectiveness of the use of emoji in cloze test as compared to traditional cloze test. Grade 10 students of Balite National High School (n=40 for experimental group, and n=40 for control group) for the school year 2021-2022, comprised the respondents for this study. To collect the data, the researcher used a Cloze Test. A pre-test was administered before the researcher gave treatment to the experimental class, and a post-test held afterward. For data analysis, the researcher used mean and independent t-test. The findings indicated that there was a significant difference in the level of vocabulary skills of the students between the pretest and posttest of both groups. However, in the control group, the level remained static in low level despite the increase in scores after the posttest. On the other hand, the students’ level of vocabulary skills leaped one level higher after the treatment and in the posttest from average level in the pretest to high level in the posttest. Generally, the integration of emoji in cloze test to enhance vocabulary skills was found better and more effective than the traditional cloze test. Results suggested that the participants have positive perception and attitude towards the use of emojis, viewed this as a tool in improving their vocabulary skills, and kept them motivated.