Board Games in Improving Pupils’ Speaking Skills: A Systematic Review

Board Games in Improving Pupils’ Speaking Skills: A Systematic Review

Board Games in Improving Pupils’ Speaking Skills: A Systematic Review

By Catherine Hui Tiing Wong and Melor Md Yunus

Abstract

“English is a fundamental language to learn as it is used worldwide. The teaching andlearning of English has been emphasized in Malaysia as English plays a major role in global communication. However, speaking performance was recorded as poor and weak among pupils in ESLclassrooms. Previous researchers explored a myriad of communicative language activities to improvespeaking skill. Board games are employed as one of the most useful tools to improve speaking skillsamong pupils. This systematic review was conducted to examine pupils’ perceptions on the useof board games in learning and speaking, as well as the usefulness of board games in improvingtheir speaking skill. A total of 35 articles, from the period 2017–2021, were accessed through threedatabases: Google Scholar, ERIC and SAGE Journals. The review was conducted systematically basedon the guidelines from the PRISMA statement (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviewsand Meta-Analyses). Based on the articles gathered, the results showed that the qualitative researchdesign was mostly used to collect pupils’ opinions on the use of board games, while quantitativeresearch design was mostly used to evaluate the usefulness of board games in improving speaking.Overall, the systematic review revealed that board games had several positive impacts in pupils’speaking performances such as improving speaking competency, enhancing motivation in speakingand increasing interpersonal interaction among pupils. It is suggested that future studies could focuson investigating teachers’ opinions on the use of board games in teaching and speaking.”

Reference

Wong Hui Tiing, C., & Md Yunus, M. (2021). Board games in improving pupils’ speaking skills: A systematic review. Sustainability, 13(16), 8772. doi:10.3390/su13168772 https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8772/htm

Keyword

Board games, speaking, education, English, pupils’ perceptions, research