Gamifying the English Language Classroom to Motivate Omani Teenagers

Abstract

Students in Oman have negative attitudes towards learning English. An action research where a gamification implementation including various elements such as a leaderboard, badges, and a progress bar was conducted. Three instruments were used to investigate how gamification could increase the learners' motivation: motivation tests, interview protocols, and complete participant observations. The motivation tests were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The interview and observation data were analyzed using a thematic coding qualitative method. Results revealed that over the two cycles of implementation of the gamified approach to learning English, 92% of students demonstrated an increase in their motivation to learn English. The interviews revealed the specific aspects of the gamified approach that contributed to this increase. Extrinsic motivation was replaced by intrinsic motivation. This leads to implications for a future study where the gamified approach to teaching could be trialed across different classes and subjects in the same school.