Using gamification in the process of improving phonetic skills in English lessons in primary school

Introduction. Today, in the process of teaching foreign languages, one of the primary objectives of the educational process is the formation and development of students’ foreign language competences. Practice shows that the combination of classical methodology with innovative approaches based on the introduction of modern pedagogical and information technologies into the learning process is largely effective. Duly-formed phonetic skills may be considered as a basis of foreign language proficiency; therefore, the work over their development should be given primary attention at the initial stage. Graduates of pedagogical faculties and universities often underestimate the importance of working on this aspect. The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of gamification on the improvement of junior schoolchildren’s phonetic skills in English classes. Materials and methods. A number of works by modern Russian and foreign scientists on the research subject were investigated and analysed. To specify the difficulties in the process of formation and improvement of phonetic skills in the process of learning English at secondary general training organisations, a questionnaire survey was undertaken covering 75 teachers. The research based on the data for three schools of Lipetsk region applied the method of pedagogical experiment considering the entrance and resulting diagnostics of the phonetic skills formation level in 50 third-year schoolchildren. Pearson’s chi-square test was used to assess the results of the experiment. The research also involved the method of conversation and observation. KEYWORDS Results. In the course of the research, a set of tasks with gaming settings was tested, aimed at the formation and improvement of English phonetic skills in the lessons for third-year schoolchildren. The results of the experiment including entrance and resulting testing, as well as the questionnaire survey of school teachers and the analysis of sources on the research subject, prove the validity of the assumption asserting the efficiency of game technologies for the process of teaching correct English pronunciation skills to junior schoolchildren (χ2= 12.743; p<0.01). Conclusion. The questionnaire survey involving English language school teachers confirmed the existence of significant problems in the organisation of the process of teaching foreign language phonetic skills to junior schoolchildren. The survey results prove the gamification potential to be an effective means of improving the process of teaching English at primary school, in particular, for the formation and perfection of pronunciation skills.