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Strengthening the Communicative Competence by Integrating Language Functions in the EFL Classroom with Gamification Tools

Abstract:

English as a foreign language education will promote real-world communication with people from all over the world. For this reason, this research has the objective to determine the effectiveness of the integration of language functions on the development of communicative competence in the EFL classroom for the first semester students at Universidad Técnica de Ambato. The methodology used here was a quantitative approach with a quasi-experimental focus. The experimental (13 students) and control group (13 students) were evaluated through the preliminary English practice test conducted by Cambridge ESOL, in the pre and post-test, the communicative competence will be assessed based on the four language skills: listening, reading, writing, and speaking. For experimentation purpose, gamification tools were used in order to allow students to interact more dynamically and creatively with the resources that were applied for the development of communication skills. For the development of gamified resources, an ADDIE methodology has been applied to establish a more direct approach to technology and pedagogy. The experimental group received interventions for 5 weeks, totaling 15 lessons, in which the language functions in English class were primarily employed in a presentation, practice, and production paradigm. The results show a significant improvement in the experimental group, and statistically, it proves that the P value is less than the significance of 0.05, which means the alternative hypothesis is accepted.