The Impact of Using Games on Improving Speaking Skills of English as a Second Language Students

Abstract

This research study is an attempt to investigate the impact of using ELT games in the classroom to improve the speaking skills of ESL learners. The research bases itself on the argument that using ELT games in the English learning classroom improves the students‟ proficiency in English. According to the previous research studies, playing games in the classroom can be viewed as a rich linguistic input and as an effective stimulus which enhance the four competences of a language: writing, reading, listening and speaking. This paper aims to investigate the impact of ELT games in enhancing English speaking skills of the undergraduates. The study will be carried out through classroom-based observations using two samples of first year undergraduates of Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology. Two classes (25 students in each class) will be selected and ELT games will be employed with one sample while the other will be taught without using ELT game. The findings of this research study demonstrate the effects of ELT games on the first year undergraduates‟ skill of English speaking. This study further suggests that the effective ELT games can be used in the classroom to improve the speaking skills of the ESL learners.