Influence Of Computer Games On English Vocabulary Acquisition In Primary Schools

Vocabulary in primary school is the most important part for students to learn English. It can lay a good foundation for student’s listening, speaking, reading and writing skills. Therefore, how to improve students’ vocabulary effectively becomes a rather important problem, which has attracted many researchers from abroad and at home.Primary school students are playable, curious, active and compatible. They show high enthusiasm to all kinds of games. Computer games have colorful screen, dynamic pictures and music or sound, which attracts students’ attention. Applying computer game to English vocabulary acquisition can create a relaxing and happy classroom atmosphere, which can stimulate students’ interest in vocabulary acquisition. Application of computer games in English vocabulary acquisition started in America, and researchers at home and abroad have had great achievements in the related study and developed many famous softwares, which can be used to train learner’s words learning.Based on the theory of Kreshen’s Input hypothesis, information Process theory and the Immersion theory, the author conducted an experiment with software Words Link Game to test the influence of computer games on primary school students’ English vocabulary acquisition. The whole experiment lasted two months. The subjects were selected randomly from Baiyin Yucai primary school of Gansu province, and they were divided into the control group and the experimental group. An English teacher taught students English words in control group with traditional method, and in experimental group, the teacher trained students to learn words by applying the software Words Link Game. During this experiment, the author used three questionnaires and two tests. The data were analyzed by SPSS19.0.The data collected include: questionnaire and pre-test and post-test in both groups. Analysis of questionnaire showed that a majority of students can have a great improvement in their interest in and attitude towards vocabulary acquisition. By analyzing the pre-test and post-test of both group, the author found a significant difference statistically after the experiment between the control group and the experimental group(P=.048<.05,M=91.8667), which indicated that students’ words size in the experiment group have been increased effectively. By analyzing the data of memory tests, it was found that computer games based vocabulary memorization turned out to be efficient both in short-term memory and long-term memory.Based on the study, the author have made several suggestions. The teacher should be proficient in mastering software before its application, and students should be familiar with the operation before class. The English teacher should also design a variety of creative teaching plan to stimulate students’ curiosity and interest continuously, and he or she should avoid the students focusing on game addiction, or other attractions. But this kind of software has a weakness, it is lack of oral contact, so the teacher should design some oral practice activities to use it efficiently. Besides, the author has not made study on evaluation system of software and classroom management in applying computer games. It is hoped that researchers will have a further study.