The effectiveness of four vocabulary games in improving students’ English vocabulary retention

Abstract

Vocabulary is the most crucial part of language learning. It provides the basis for the four language skills: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. However, most EFL students, especially in Indonesia, struggle to learn English effectively, due to their limited vocabulary knowledge. This research aimed at finding out whether there is a significant improvement on students’ English vocabulary retention at SMPQTA An-Nur after the implementation of four vocabulary games. This research employed one-group pretest-posttest design, utilizing vocabulary translation test to obtain the data. Saturated sampling was used for this research due to the limited class and number of the seventh-grade students. The mean scores on both the pre-test and post-test were analyzed using the Paired-Sample T-Test with a significance level of 5% (0.05). The result shows that there is an improvement on students’ vocabulary translation test scores after the implementation of four vocabulary games by comparing students’ pre-test and post-test scores, which means that there is an increase in students vocabulary retention. With the help of SPSS 25 program, a significance (2-tailed) value of 0.000 was obtained. The significance (2-tailed) value was higher than the significance level (0.000<0.05) and t-value is higher than t-table (15.920>2.064); there is a significant positive difference. Therefore, the four vocabulary games are effective in improving students’ vocabulary retention.

Keywords: English vocabulary, vocabulary retention, vocabulary games