Enhancing L2 Young Learners’ Speaking Skill through Content-Based Games

Abstract

The purpose of this research project is to determine if the use of content-based games can help L2 students improve their speaking skills. This research project was focused on answering the following questions: (1) In what degree does the use of content-based games inside the English class help sixth-grade students from Unidad Educativa Particular “Rosa de Jesús Cordero” (Catalinas) to enhance their L2 speaking skills? (2) Which subskill would have the greatest impact by developing oral communication in an L2 class content? The research involved ten games that were designed based on the students’ age and the school year academic level. There were sixty-eight students as participants, who were divided into two groups of thirty-four students, which started at the beginning of the school year. The students of each group were not a homogenous English level group. Content-based games learning strategy was applied inside the classroom to encourage the students to improve their L2 speaking skills. A pre-test and post-test were applied in order to measure the participants speaking skills before and after the intervention as the treatment group as the control group. The quantitative approach was developed in this research. Findings revealed that the use of content-based games learning strategies had a significant impact on the students on the subskill message for the treatment group than for the control group.