The Impact of Utilizing Competitive Digital Games on Developing Vocabulary Retention of Primary Stage Pupils

The ability of students to recall or remember things after a period of time is referred to as vocabulary retention. In language teaching, retention of what has been taught may be affected by the quality of the teaching, the learners' interest, or the relevance of the materials. As a result, this paper explored the appropriateness and usefulness of introducing competitive digital games and activities into English lexical training at a middle school of Egyptian schools. The current study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of utilizing competitive activities on developing primary stage pupils' vocabulary retention. To achieve such goals, certain instruments have been designed and used; a vocabulary retention pre-posttest and competitive activities-based teachers’ guide & student’s book. The study adopted the quasi-experimental research design that depends on the two groups; experimental and control. The experimental group was then advised to employ competitive activities, while the control group was instructed to use the traditional practices outlined in the “Time for English” Level 6 “Teacher's Guide”. The sample of the study comprises 60 students from the 6^th grade at Hurghada Smart city school, and they were divided into equal groups. Both groups were approximately the same age, according to their school records (10-11 years). Results of the study showed that there were statistically significant differences between the mean scores of students in the experimental group in the pre and post vocabulary retention test in favor of the post-testing. Findings also revealed that there were statistically significant differences between the means scores of both the control and experimental groups in the post-testing of vocabulary retention test.