Using Pick and Speak Board Game to Enhance Pupils’ Speaking Skill

Abstract

English as a Second Language emerges as an essential language to acquire and impacts most of the education system. The scenario also requires our young learners to master the language to polish their interpersonal and communication skills to prepare them for a developing nation. This research aims to study whether using the Pick and Speak board game can help enhance speaking skills among primary school pupils. The research applied quasi-experimental research to obtain data. 67 Year 3 pupils from four suburban schools in Sarawak were identified as the research sample. The researchers grouped them into high achievers, intermediate and low achievers. Pupils were given questionnaires to get their feedback to support the data finding from the pre-test and post-test. With the aid of this board game intervention, pupils are expected to construct sentences using present continuous tense and describe their daily routines orally. The study indicated that using Pick and Speak board game impacts pupils' speaking performance, especially in vocabulary and pronunciation, followed by grammar and fluency aspects during the learning process. The researchers hoped that this board game innovation would benefit both the teachers and young learners as the alternative teaching aid to teach and develop their speaking skills with grammatical errors free. Most importantly, the Pick and Speak board game offers an effective way of improving teaching efficiency, encouraging the element of collaborative and competition in a non-threatening environment.