Students’ Reflections on Vocabulary Learning through Synchronous and Asynchronous Games and Activities

Year 2018, Volume: 19 Issue: 3, 53 - 70, 17.07.2018

Hatice Karaaslan Nurseven Kılıc Gamze Guven-yalcın Abdulkadir Gullu

https://doi.org/10.17718/tojde.444640

Cited By: 13

Abstract

Many learners are now quite digitally skilled. However, this does not entail that they know how to learn through digital technologies. Therefore, establishing an interactive virtual learning platform that connects everyone together in a classroom environment and helping learners become familiar with such media might serve a set of purposes in any educational setting. Today, with the advances in web-based learning technologies, a hybrid teaching methodology has become widespread: blended learning. It is a term used to describe the way e-learning is being combined with traditional classroom methods and independent study. Educators design online materials and utilize them in synchronous or asynchronous ways to suit the convenience of learners and instructors and program demands. In this study with a group of intermediate-level English language learners at the School of Foreign Languages of an English-medium state university, the goal was to enhance students’ vocabulary learning performance by using synchronous and asynchronous games and activities that will activate and maintain intrinsic motivation in an effort to teach parts of speech and collocations over a period of eight weeks. The data consisted of a survey of students’ reflections on their vocabulary learning experiences through digital games and activities. The findings were discussed with respect to the efficiency of incorporating synchronous and asynchronous learning materials.

Keywords

Synchronous and asynchronous games, intrinsic motivation, vocabulary development, collocations, parts of speech

References

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