The Grammar Odyssey

Introduction

Grammar learning is often associated with dreariness and lack of learners’ motivation. Research has shown that traditional grammar teaching and learning has failed to motivate learners to actively engage in grammar lessons and lifelong learning (Matas & Natolo, 2010). Learners often complain of learning the complex grammar rules and having to do dull grammar exercises in the classroom. What is more unfortunate, students tend to portray the English teacher as an "unattractive grammar monger whose only pleasure in life is to point out the faults of others" (Baron, 1982: 226). Nevertheless, teaching the grammar lessons may not be boring if the right approach is applied. Learning English grammar in the form of a board game may take away this dullness, but instead offers a non-threatening and useful activity for language learning. When the game aspect comes to the centre where learners or players believe that they are engaging in a game, this allows the learning process to take deliberately in a fun environment.

Problem Statement

Learning English grammar is certainly not an easy task for many non-native speakers of English. With the complicated sets of rules to acquire and apply in other components of English, namely, reading, writing, listening and speaking, it is indeed a challenging task to master. For instance, many Malaysian learners are incapable of applying the different parts of speech and English tenses correctly in their writing and speaking particularly. As a result, they tend to produce erroneous structures, which leads to poor performances in the language. It is common to see Malaysian learners of English make glaring mistakes in their grammar attempts. In addition, the fact that grammar learning is frequently perceived as boring, there is a need for a fun and meaningful approach that could help students learn grammar in a more engaging and enjoyable way. Hence, it is crucial to implement an effective pedagogical approach to learn and teach grammar so as to aid learners acquire the grammar skills.

Objective

The first objective of this study is to promote the use of board game as a learning tool especially in mastering the English grammar. Board games have been known as popular traditional games for family members and friends. Playing the board games during family gatherings or other social functions always brings warm thoughts and happy times. Nevertheless, in this age of online gaming and smart phone games and applications, many people have slowly forgotten about traditional board games. Board games are worthy toys to play for all ages including the adults, and there are a number of reasons why these are still highly recommended. Hence, for this reason, we have come out with a language board game called ‘The Grammar Odyssey’.

The second objective of this survey study was to solicit users’ evaluation and feedback about the usefulness of the board game, targeting the adult learners. It is a language board game that is specifically designed for beginner and intermediate levels of learners. The board game is a handy device for learning the English grammar items, which integrates fun, leisure, simplicity and practicality in order to motivate players to learn and enjoy grammar. ‘The Grammar Odyssey’ specifically emphasizes the English parts of speech and tenses that essentially form the pillars of English components. We believe that using this board game as a learning tool could possibly motivate and enhance grammar learning in learners.

Literature Review

Methodology

‘The Grammar Odyssey’ is an education tool invented to attract learners’ interest to learn English grammar by integrating a simple, useful and fun approach. This language game consists of a game board, two dices, four game pieces of different colours as the movers, an answer booklet with explanations on the grammar items, 500 question cards for the beginner level (orange cards), and 500 question cards for the intermediate level (purple cards) (see Figure 2). The board game illustrates a spiral comprising 100 spaces, marked with numbers from 1 to 100. The spaces in the spiral consist of images of rockets, comets and question marks (?), whereby they represent their specific functions. The board game is named ‘The Grammar Odyssey’ as it depicts a journey in acquiring grammar knowledge.

Participants

It is noted that this language board game is not exclusively designed for young learners only, but it also caters for all age groups. For this purpose, an evaluation study was conducted through a focus group experiment involving working adult learners. The participants were selected purposively among the support staff members of UiTM Sarawak, Malaysia. The head of the department was contacted to nominate the staff for a voluntary session scheduled on 24 May, 2016, which took place at UiTM Sarawak campus. Twenty-two (22) administrative and support staff members had agreed to participate in this study. This selected group of adult learners aged from 28 to 57 years old, with a various range of educational and racial backgrounds, adult responsibilities and job experiences. They were also considered lifelong learners with multiple responsibilities such as career and family, who like any other learners, also require continuous educational training to improve their professional and personal endeavours.

Research Instrument

This survey study utilised a set of questionnaire adapted from Metom et al. (2013). The questionnaire comprises two parts: Section A and Section B. Section A consists of the respondent’s profile (i.e. age, gender, race, profession and educational level), whereas Section B consists of ten items relating to the participants’ feedback after playing the board game. A validity and reliability test was also conducted to ensure the psychometric relevancy and consistency of the measured items in the evaluation survey.

The participants were given a briefing on the purpose of the study and how the grammar game is played. The game can be played by 4-5 players. Before playing the board game, the participants were given options to choose from the two levels of game cards; either to choose the beginner level or the intermediate level in accordance with their language proficiency.

Some examples of instructions and questions as stated on the game cards are as follows:

For beginner level: Instruction: Choose the correct answer for the statement below: She is an ______ person. honest honesty honestly For intermediate level: Instruction: Fill in the blank with the correct verb in parentheses. I (arrive) _____ home at about 6 o'clock yesterday and (sit) ___ down on the sofa to watch my favourite show.

The game commences by rolling the dices, in which the highest score will kick off first. A player who lands on the space marked with ‘?’ will have to pick a card and answer the question stated on it which relates to a grammar item. The player who gives the correct answer to the grammar question will have another chance to roll the dices and continue playing. However, if the answer given is incorrect, he or she will miss a turn. The game also includes features whereby landing on the bottom of any rocket will help the player to move upward. However, if the player lands on the tail of a comet, he/she will move downward and lose a turn. The player who reaches the space marked ‘100’ first will become the winner.

After playing the game, the participants were given an evaluation survey form comprising ten questions that measure the usefulness of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. The participants’ feedback was measured by five-level Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree). A sample item as stated in the evaluation survey form is as follows: I enjoy playing ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. In order to ensure the usefulness of the evaluation survey, the validity and reliability test was conducted. Additionally, a factor analysis was also performed to statistically identify the possibilities of usefulness factors of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. The findings of the evaluation survey are discussed in the following section.

Results and Discussions

Respondents’ Profiles

Based on the survey results, 22 staff members from different administrative and support departments of UiTM Sarawak had participated in this study. They encompassed 15 males and 7 females aged from 28 to 57 years old with different administrative and support positions, namely, 1 administrative clerk, 4 civil assistants, 2 clerks, 1 community nurse, 2 drivers, 2 general workers, 2 hostel supervisors, 2 library assistants, 3 operation assistants, 1 science officer and 2 unspecified positions. They were composed of 15 Malays, 3 Melanaus, 3 Ibans and 1 Bidayuh. It is noted that Sarawak’s population consists of many ethnic groups. In addition, in terms of their educational qualifications, majority of the participants held the school certificate of SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia – Malaysian Certificate of Education) with 68.2% of them, while 4.5% of them held the certificate of STPM (Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia – Malaysian Certificate of Higher Education). In addition, 9.1% of the respondents had a diploma degree, whereas 4.5% of them acquired a bachelor degree. In addition, 9.1% of the staff members obtained other educational qualifications.

Table 6 shows the participants’ feedback after using ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. In general, the findings revealed positive acceptance of the participants to the grammar game. Precisely, for survey item No. 1, 63.6% of the respondents agreed that they enjoyed playing the board game, whereas 31.8% strongly agreed. Meanwhile, 4.5% of the staff members chose to be neutral. For survey item No. 2, 72.7% of the users agreed that they liked the fun and colourful features of the board, while 27.3% of them strongly agreed on this matter. For survey item No. 3, 54.5% of the participants strongly agreed that they learned something new when playing the board game, while 45.5% of them agreed on this item. As for survey item No. 4, 72.7% of the staff agreed that they sometimes discussed the answers with their friends while playing the game, while 27.3% of them strongly agreed that they also did the same too. For survey item No. 5, 59% of the respondents agreed that they could improve their grammar skills when playing ‘The Grammar Odyssey’, while 31.8% of them strongly agreed on this survey matter. However, 9.1% of the participants were neutral on this part. For survey item No. 6, 72.7% of them agreed that the board game encouraged them to communicate in English with their friends, 22.7% strongly agreed on this matter, while 4.4% responded neutral. For survey item No. 7, 59.1% of the participants strongly agreed that using the board game was a fun way of learning English grammar, 36.4% agreed on this matter, whereas 4.5 chose neutral. For survey item No. 8, 63.6% of the staff members agreed that the questions in the board game were clear and could be easily understood, 31.8% strongly agreed on this matter, while 4.5% responded neutral. For survey item No. 9, 63.6% of them agreed that they would play the board game with their friends and family members, 27.3% agreed on this item, while 4.5% chose neutral. Finally, for survey item No. 10, 63.6% of the participants agreed that the board game was a practical and meaningful way of learning English grammar, 31.8% of them strongly agreed on this matter, while 4.5% chose neutral.

In general, majority of the UiTM staff members responded that the language board game made learning grammar fun and effective, and it enabled them to practise their grammar skills. They also expressed that this innovation project was an effective tool in enhancing their grammar knowledge while having fun with the language. The items discussed particularly reflect the usefulness of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. Thus, a further exploratory factor analysis was performed to investigate the psychometric pattern of the particular items statistically.

Validity and Reliability

As mentioned in the methodology section, a validity and reliability test was conducted to ensure the psychometric relevancy and consistency of the measured items in the evaluation survey. First, to establish the face validity, the survey instrument was designed carefully by referring to the existing sample of the program evaluation form. Second, the evaluation form was later checked by four experts (a native speaker of English, two academicians and a support staff from UiTM Sarawak) to obtain the content validity of the evaluation measure. The questions were refined accordingly to the feedback given by the experts. Third, a reliability test was conducted to check the consistency of the evaluation measure items. Based on the internal reliability analysis, the evaluation measure was found highly reliable and consistent at Cronbach’s alpha (α) value of .919 ( = 16.92, s ² = 16.415 & s = 4.052) (more than the cut-off value α = .070) (Igbaria, Parasuraman & Badawy, 1994).

Exploratory Factor Analysis

The Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy was accounted for .805, which shows the sufficiency of sample (p < .5), while the Measure of Sampling Adequacy (MSA) score was less than cut-off point of .5. The result suggests that those items with anti-image correlations scored less than the cut-off point of .5 in the weighting scale.

Table 7 shows the detailed results of item-grouping or pattern loadings. Two factors with an eigenvalue of 1.00 or higher were extracted. The rotated factors accumulated 56.62% of the variance. The first factor accounted for 36.30% of the variance with an eigenvalue of 5.944. This factor was labelled as ‘learning’ as the evaluation items reflected the implicit benefits of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. Meanwhile, the second factor accounted for 26.867% of the variance with an eigenvalue of 1.008. This factor was labelled as ‘manifestation’ as the evaluation items reflected the tacit benefits of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’.

In addition, a further reliability test had also been conducted to check the internal consistency of the newly formed factors to the usefulness of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’. First, the learning factor (comprising six items) was found highly reliable and consistent at Cronbach’s alpha (α) value of .909 ( = 10.24, s ² = 7.031 & s = 2.652). Second, the manifestation factor (with four items) was also found highly reliable and consistent at Cronbach’s alpha (α) value of .810 ( = 6.68, s ² = 2.894 & s = 1.701). Both factors were found reliable with more than the cut-off value α = .070 (Igbaria et al., 1994).

Usefulness of the Language Board Game

Learning Factor

Based on the participants’ highly positive acceptance of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’, it can be concluded that the board game is a useful tool for teaching and learning English grammar. The board game is a fun tool that helps get the learners to be active in their learning. It activates learners’ interest by creating a relaxed, friendly and anxiety-free environment, which makes learning the grammar items an enjoyable experience. Besides, the board game also motivates the learners to communicate with one another in English while playing the grammar game. It also makes language learning more real and offers the players a sense of relevance in learning the English language. In accordance with Celce-Murcia and Macintosh (1979:54), “language use takes precedence over language practice, and in this sense games help bring the classroom to the real world, no matter how contrived they may be”. In addition, incorporating games into language teaching and learning provides learners with an entertaining and relaxing learning atmosphere, in which this may lower their stress and anxiety in learning grammar (Krashen, 1982). Integrating games into language learning makes it highly appealing since they are entertaining and simultaneously thought-provoking. Clark (1982) also argued that games can be used as a way to assess and rehearse language lessons in a fun and entertaining way. Moreover, ‘The Grammar Odyssey’ employs simplicity and practicality in the question items, which makes it a meaningful, friendly and useful language tool for learning grammar. The language board game is also a revision for grammar exercises put in a fun context. Needless to say, the adult learners in this study were given the opportunity to practise and apply their grammar skills again while playing it.

Manifestation Factor

‘The Grammar Odyssey’ motivates the learners’ interest to learn grammar through its fun features which create an enjoyable atmosphere for language learning. It is a practical game designed with fun and colourful features to attract players and indirectly offers a platform for grammar learning to take place. The game could be played with family members and friends that makes it a wonderful experience, giving them relaxed and joyful moments. The board game provides a context for meaningful language application in terms of English grammar learning, which becomes their major motivation to embark in the learning process. As asserted by Harmer (1998, as cited in Luu & Nguyen, 2010), motivation becomes an internal drive for learners that inspires them to pursue a course of action. This motivation forms the biggest dynamic that influences their acquisition success. The board game captures the payers’ attention and participation, and thus motivating them to learn more.

Moreover, the features of ‘The Grammar Odyssey’ also promote learners’ interaction. According to Jacobs and Liu (1996), most game enable the players to play in pairs or groups, enabling them to apply their communicative skills such as disagreeing politely and requesting for assistance from their partner or group members while engaging in the games. In addition, games provide an opportunity for players to be participative and competitive while trying to score points and beat others. The competitive nature of the games offers learners a natural chance to collaborate and interact in English with one another.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, learning English grammar through the board game is one effective, interesting and captivating way that can be applied in any environment, be it at the classroom or at home, or any age group, be it children or adults. Based on the findings of this research, incorporating games into grammar learning in the form of a board game can motivate even adult learners for the useful practice and review of language lessons, which results in enhancement of language learning. ‘The Grammar Odyssey’ is indeed a useful and practical tool that can be used by all learners regardless of their age groups to learn grammar. The language board game is effective as it creates motivation, reduces learners’ anxiety and offers them the opportunity for real language application.

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our deepest appreciation to all the 22 administrative and support staff members of UiTM Sarawak Campus for participating in the survey study of this innovation project.

References