SUPPLEMENTARY VOCABULARY LEARNING TOOLS IN PAKISTANI INTERMEDIATE ESL CONTEXTS: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY OF STUDENT AND TEACHER PERCEPTIONS ABOUT MOBILE GAMING APPS

Abstract

This article aims to answer what are the perceptions of intermediate-level ESL learners and English teachers regarding the affordances and constraints of mobile gaming apps in learning vocabulary? Instead of purporting that gaming apps directly lead to vocabulary growth, the research focuses on the reported access, preferences, perceived learning value, and reservations of the participants. A pragmatic mixed-methods design was used and questionnaires completed by 50 intermediate students and 30 English teachers in the privately-run English medium institutions in Lahore, Pakistan provided quantitative data. Open-ended responses of the students and semi-structured interviews with 10 teachers provided qualitative data. The survey data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and exploratory cross-tabulations, whereas the qualitative answers were analyzed thematically. Student instrument (Cronbachs alpha =.705) and teacher instrument (Cronbachs alpha =.863) were acceptable and strong respectively. The results indicate a generally positive attitude to mobile gaming apps as an additional vocabulary tool. Students rated their familiarity with gaming apps as high, their support of multimodal features, including sound, animation, video and varied presentation, and their attitudes towards gaming apps as engagement, contextualized exposure and self-paced learning tools. The teachers were also more cautious about the motivational and contextual affordances of gaming apps, although their answers were more consistent. They did not consider the possibility of apps to substitute teachers or books and stressed the importance of close pedagogical coordination, choice of apps, and mediation by teachers. The article contends that mobile gaming apps most likely play an educational role in this scenario not by replacing, but rather by supplementing. Following recent research on Mobile-Assisted Vocabulary Learning (MAVL) and Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL), the study concludes that mobile gaming applications could be viewed as motivational, multimodal, and accessible aids to vocabulary learning the usefulness of which is conditional to guided use, curricular alignment, and realistic expectations.