Video Games as Motivators of English Vocabulary Acquisition and Reading

—The current generation of students is keen on playing video games across platforms such as smartphones, personal computers, or other devices. Teachers could take advantage of their enthusiasm for gaming by integrating learning with games played in the classroom or at home. Most students in Indonesia do not consider English as a foreign language important or challenging. There is a marked difference in learning English at school and self-learning: a student must study specific materials by a certain grade at school; however, students can self-learn from discrete types of exposure. Very few students engage in self-learning or know that they must master English. This study examined whether the integration of video games to English classes would motivate students to learn. The experiment focused on enhancing the motivation of students to read English text. Data were collected through a mixed method. Besides collecting pre- and post- tests, the researcher also administered a questionnaire to the students who performed best in the post-test. The t-test calculation performed on the obtained results revealed only a slight increase in the motivation of participating students. The outcomes of the analysis of the questionnaire divulged that the game’s visualization helped students who performed best to understand English better and that these learners were incentivized to improve their English by doing what they love.