The Role of Playing Video Games in Mastering English as a Foreign Language among Children in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 Lockdown — Oak Academic Publishing
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The Role of Playing Video Games in Mastering English as a Foreign Language among Children in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 Lockdown
Department of English Language, Turabah University College, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia
1 Department of English Language, Turabah University College, Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia
Nowadays children are highly exposed to video games. The number of hours that children spend playing digital games has rapidly increased throughout the COVID-19 lockdown. A survey was conducted in this study to determine whether playing online video games has an impact on English proficiency and whether online gaming positively contributes to foreign language development. A total of 62 parents of online video gamers (42 males, 20 females) aged between 5 and 13 years responded to a variety of questions on the number and quality of their children’s disclosure to digital games. The findings point to considerable progress and suggest that online games have a significant influence on foreign language development. Areas of the greatest improvements were lexicon and speaking. Going deeper, the findings suggest that extended exposure to online video games during the COVID-19 lockdown played a big part in mitigating anxiety and enhancing confidence and motivation toward learning the target language. The findings demonstrate that online video games offer a positive stimulating authentic environment, which plays a vital role in mastering the target language effectively.
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