The Future of Education

Learning English as a foreign language (EFL) primarily depends on vocabulary acquisition, especially for young learners in the early stages. To enhance vocabulary acquisition when teaching English to K–12 students as a foreign language, innovative methods are necessary. This qualitative research study aims to enrich vocabulary instruction through gamified activities and to gather learners' perceptions of their experiences. For this study, six fourth-grade students who participated in game-based vocabulary instruction for three weeks at a public primary school in China were selected on a voluntary basis. Focused group interviews were conducted in the school setting after the interventions were completed. Each interview lasted about 15 minutes and was led by two researchers. While one researcher asked the questions, the other observed the participants' non-verbal communication and took notes. The voice recordings of the interviews were transcribed, and a rigorous content analysis was applied to both the observation notes and the transcripts. Four researchers conducted the analysis independently. Important statements believed to reflect the phenomenon were highlighted, and codes were created based on the identified patterns. These codes were finalized once all researchers reached a consensus. Based on the codes, the emerging themes were grouped under two main categories that are affective and cognitive engagement. Some of the themes that were related to affective engagement were motivation, interest, attraction, and some others that were grouped under cognitive engagement category were recalling, visualizing, recognizing, and remembering. were discussed in the scope of language learning motivation, classroom practice, and game-based learning.