INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF EDUCATIONAL GAMES ON ENHANCING VOCABULARY RETENTION OF IRANIAN PRESCHOOLERS

Learning EFL vocabulary is a difficult task so that teachers try as much as possible to facilitate it for their learners. One of the best strategies that can be used is educational games strategy. The goal of this research is to check the effectiveness of using the educational games strategy in enhancing English vocabulary acquisition and retention of Iranian preschoolers. The study adopted the quasi-experimental pre-posttest control / experimental group design. The study sample consisted of 40 students’ range between 5to7. And was equally divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control one. Students of the experimental group learnt vocabulary through the educational game strategy, while students in the control group received regular instruction. The Paired sample T-Test and Independent Sample T-Test were used. Results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of the experimental group and the control group in the pre/ post-test of English vocabulary achievement in favor of the experimental group.