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GAMIFICATION THROUGH MOODLE TO ENHANCE VOCABULARY LEARNING

Article in Journal of Critical Reviews · July 2021

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 ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 13, 2020

GAMIFICATION THROUGH MOODLE TO ENHANCE

VOCABULARY LEARNING
Dr. Subhasri Vijayakumar
Assistant Professor – German Division of Social Sciences & Languages, School of Advanced Sciences
VIT Chennai
Email: subhasri.v@vit.ac.in

Received: 14 March 2020 Revised and Accepted: 8 July 2020

ABSTRACT: Gamification and Game based activities for learning are the current trends acknowledged in the
education sector. In a foreign language context, target language is mostly confined to the classroom and the
teacher. Hence learning, remembering and retaining the new words become a herculean task for the learners.
This study examines the games that the Learning Management System (LMS) – MOODLE employs and how
these games were used to fortify the vocabulary learning of the German learners at tertiary level. Pre - and
Posttest with two weeks of intervention through Moodle games were done. The results show a significant
increase in the test score and a positive attitude among learners to learn German through games. An increase in
the learners’ retention of new words is exemplified. The study also confirms that games can bring in joy to
learning and actively engage learners anytime and anywhere.

KEYWORDS: Gamification, vocabulary learning, Moodle LMS, Foreign language learning, German
vocabulary

I. INTRODUCTION:

Vocabulary is the foremost important skill for any language learner. Every learner encounters a wide array of
vocabulary on a daily basis and they must learn it, retain it and reproduce it in meaningful contexts too.
Vocabulary is the basis for the development of all the four language skills, i.e, Reading, Writing, Listening and
Speaking. Building a rich, meaningful and useful vocabulary in the learners is one of the main tasks of any
language teacher. Learning vocabulary is a collective process which has to be consciously taught, learned,
inculcated and recycled. With the advent of ICT, Web 2.0 and LMS in the educational sector, interactive
activities are being widely implemented in the teaching/learning process. Creating the right exposure to the
target language taught in a foreign language classroom has been a challenge to the teachers worldwide and is
also one of the widely discussed topics in the teachers’ forums. Class timings, examination centered teaching,
limited audio/video facilities in the class, lack of space for activities etc. are a few reasons quoted by teachers
for the lack of practice within the classroom. Technological advancements have addressed these issues by
bringing in anytime, anywhere learning and that too in a highly interactive and engaging manner through games,
animations and live interactions. There are innumerable Apps and tools being designed for language learning
nowadays and many Learning Management Systems (LMS) have the facility to incorporate these tools within
their structure. Web 2.0 has a plethora of games for various purposes and many studies are also being
undertaken testing the efficacy of such games in the teaching-learning scenarios (Taheri, 2014, Lui, 2015, Ratz,
2015).

Games and Game based activities are not new to any of us. We all play games for the fun of it and enjoy the
process of playing. “Gamification involves the application of game‐design thinking and play elements to non‐
game activities, such as routine homework or classroom lessons” (Abrams & Walsh, 2014). Gamification in
educational sector brings in goals, skill achievements and mastery to the learner-players while not compensating
on the fun and engagement in the game. Moodle is one among the popular open source LMS. In the institution
that the author works and conducted this study, Moodle is the platform effectively used for material sharing and
conducting formative assessments or class quiz.

German is taught as a foreign language to first year students and the study was conducted among the beginner
level German students. In German the nouns are classified in to three genders and there are definite and
indefinite articles. The plural form of the nouns also varies and does not have any said pattern as seen in English
nouns. Learners at the beginner level are confronted with numerous new words, each word having a distinct
article and a plural form, which are to be remembered for successful sentence constructions at the next level.
Building learners’ vocabulary from the word level to the sentence level is important and necessary for

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successful written or oral production of the language. Being a foreign language course the time available to
cover the syllabus is also less and the opportunities to explore outside the classroom learning is also limited. But
since this becomes inevitable for the language learners’ effective communication in the target language, the
author took up Moodle, as it is the common platform used in the institution and the learners are also familiar in
it.

The primary objective of this study is to

1) Present the games plugins available in Moodle and exemplify their functionalities
2) Analyze learners’ retention of German vocabulary after the gamified intervention
3) Examine the learners’ perception on the usefulness of games to learn German

MOODLE stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. Moodle was created by Dr.
Martin Dougiamas based on constructivist and social constructionist approach to education. The first version of
Moodle was released on 20 August 2002 and is still being continually evolved. Moodle is a template-based
system to which content must be added. There are additional Plugins too which brings in supplementary features
and functionality to Moodle. The Game plugins in Moodle are found under the “Add an activity or resource”
menu and eight different types of games can be created as shown in the figure below. These games draw the
questions from either a glossary or a short answer type quiz, so initially these have to be created. Then the
games of choice can be populated with these data and students can play it multiple times to practice the lesson
point in a gamified way.

Fig 1: Games plugins in Moodle

Somova and Gachkova (2016) in their study detailed how the game elements like levels, badges, rewards,
points, progression etc… are mapped to the Moodle elements. They also illustrated how a standard course can
be redesigned with Gamification using Moodle.

Stanley (2007) and Ratz (2015) in their study had explored how vocabulary learning is fortified with a single
tool in Moodle called the Glossary. The Glossary tool allows students to create new entries and also read entries
made by fellow students. Audio visual components can also be added to the text, thereby making the glossary a
rich tool for listening, seeing and learning content in any target language chosen. Ratz through his method
methods analysis concluded that this activity paved way for directed independent learning and collaborative
learning.

Various such studies (Uzun, 2014, Bataineh and Mayyas, 2017) have also explored the benefits of blended
learning through Moodle in the teaching learning process. This study build on these earlier studies and looks
into the Gamification modules for fortifying learners’ vocabulary in German.

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II. METHODOLOGY:

This study was conducted in one class with 60 students attending the basic German course during the winter
semester 2020. A pretest with vocabulary covering five different topics that were taught to them in conventional
classroom chalk and talk method was given. They were asked to 1) identify objects and write their names in
German with the corresponding article; 2) write the definite article of the nouns given; 3) write the plural form
of the nouns; 4) write the appropriate definite/indefinite article in simple sentences. This test was given to them
through Moodle quiz and automatically marks were computed for 40 points.

Four games – Cryptex, Crossword, Millionaire and Snakes and Ladders were created to revise and practice these
words and the learners were encouraged to play these games as many times as they want for a period of two
weeks. After this intervention period, a post test on the similar pattern but with different set of questions was
administered again through Moodle quiz itself and the posttests scores were obtained. The posttest quiz also had
a few questions to ascertain the learners’ perception on the usage of games to learn, practice, remember and
retain the newly learnt words. The pre and posttest scores were analyzed and their perceptions computed and the
results of the study are as presented below.

III. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

The average score of the pretest was 23.51 and that of the posttest was 30.01. This shows a significant increase
in their performance.

Test/Scores Minimum Marks Maximum Marks Average score

Pretest 5 36 23.51
Posttest 10 39 30.01

76.67% of the students preferred gamified form of vocabulary revision and 66.67% ascertained that Moodle
games helped them remember German nouns and their articles.

I prefer gamified revision of german

Moodle Games helped me remember the
vocabulary than worksheets
German nouns & Articles easily

14 20
Yes
Yes
46 No 40
No

When asked to rate the usefulness of Moodle games in learning German vocabulary the average rating given
was 3.95 which significantly say the perception of the learners to use games for practice and revision of
vocabulary.

While any E-learning content will have its share of arousing the interests of the learners at the initial stages, it
becomes the teachers’ task to sustain it throughout the course. Developing supportive learning materials is time
consuming and laborious. As these Moodle games draw their database from previously created quizzes or
glossary, these activities can be planned in advance and made as collaborative activities by the students. Games
facilitate learning, retention and enhance practice of the target language anytime anywhere. These tools act as
scaffolding to the learners and help them progressively advance from word level to sentence level in the initial
stages of language learning. As Altalhab (2018) reiterates, it aids certainly in “meaning recall and form recall”.
The implications on learners’ long term memory have to be studied empirically to ascertain the role of games in
the long run.

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This is a case study from the classroom of a basic German course hence the results of the study are limited.
More longitudinal studies are to be undertaken to test the efficacy of such games and tools in the long term
retention of data.

IV. CONCLUSION

“Games that are used in education are also known as the oxymoron Serious Games” (Somova and Gachkova,
2016). Gamification of learning as a pedagogical approach to motivate and engage students to learn does
maximize their joy while learning and has a positive effect on their perception to learn new things also.
Garnering learners’ interests through games is assured and so is their active participation. A right mix of in class
activities and homework or individual versus collaborative tasks have to be planned and executed by the
teachers to nurture their good feel about play and learn mode and to sustain the momentum throughout the
learning process. The study has positively reiterated that gamified repetition strategies assist in vocabulary
retention and is an operative consolidation tool to learn vocabulary.

V. REFERENCES

[1] Abrams, S., & Walsh, S. (2014). Gamified Vocabulary. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(1),
pp.49-58.
[2] Altalhab, S. (2018). Short- and Long-term Effects of Repetition Strategies on Vocabulary Retention.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 9(2), p.146-149.
[3] Bataineh, R. & Mayyas, M. (2017). The utility of blended learning in EFL reading and
grammar: A case for Moodle. Teaching English with Technology, [online] 17(3), pp.35-49.
Available at: <https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1149423.pdf> [Accessed 9 July 2020].
[4] Lui, S. (2015). Use of Gamification in vocabulary learning: A case study in Macau. CELC
Symposium, [online] 15(1), pp.90-97. Available at:
http://www.nus.edu.sg/celc/research/books/4th%20Symposium%20proceedings/13).%20Sze%2
0Lui.pdf
[5] Ratz, S. (2015). Vocabulary Learning with the Moodle Glossary Tool: A Case Study. Journal of
Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, [online] 4(1), pp.44-51. Available at:
<https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/74028435.pdf>.
[6] Somova, E., & Gachkova, M. (2016). An Attempt for Gamification of Learning in Moodle. In:
International Conference on e-Learning. Slovakia.
[7] Stanley, I. (2007). Creating a student-generated glossary in Moodle: How is it done and how effective is
it?. The JALT CALL Journal, [online] 3(1&2), pp.116-131. Available at:
<https://journal.jaltcall.org/storage/articles/JALTCALL%203-1%20&%202-116.pdf>.
[8] Taheri, M. (2014). The Effect of Using Language Games on Vocabulary Retention of Iranian Elementary
EFL Learners. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 5(3), pp. 544-549. Available at:
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/59ff/a449f6879253203dc7fb58d680b6fa2906b3.pdf

AUTHOR PROFILE

Dr. Subhasri Vijayakumar has ten plus years of experience teaching German in schools, colleges, universities
and industries. She is a polyglot who knows seven languages and has done her majors in Sanskrit. Her areas of
research interest include Needs analysis, German language teaching and learning, Gamification and Game based
learning, curriculum design, E-content/Material development, comparative linguistics, and intercultural studies.

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