Developing English language learners' oral production with a digital game-based mobile application

Area of Science:

• Applied Linguistics
• Educational Technology
• Second Language Acquisition

Background:

• Digital game-based learning (DGBL) is increasingly used in language education.
• Mobile applications offer accessible platforms for language practice.
• Assessing oral production complexity, accuracy, and fluency is crucial for language development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of the "Liulishuo" mobile application on English monologic oral production.
• To evaluate changes in complexity, accuracy, and fluency among Chinese English language learners.

Main Methods:

• A pre-test and post-test design was used with 30 Chinese English language learners.
• Participants engaged in a digital game-based learning activity for 20 weeks.
• Oral production was assessed using narrative picture description tasks, measuring complexity, accuracy, and fluency indices.

Main Results:

• Significant improvements were observed in speech complexity (words per T-unit, lexical density) and accuracy (fewer errors).
• Speech rate increased, indicating enhanced fluency, but mean repairs and pause length remained unchanged.
• Unchanged repairs and pauses may suggest a need for longer intervention periods for proceduralizing linguistic knowledge.

Conclusions:

• The "Liulishuo" mobile application positively influenced English monologic oral production complexity and accuracy.
• While fluency showed some improvement (speech rate), other aspects require further investigation.
• DGBL mobile applications show promise for improving specific components of oral language skills in learners.