The impact of gamification in enhancing students’ speaking skills

Gamification in education appears to be an emerging trend, as it is perceived to make teaching and learning more engaging and motivating. However, despite its popularity, there is limited research on how well it improves language skills, specifically speaking skills. Among the four language abilities (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), speaking skills are considered the most important. This review therefore aims to recognise the impacts of gamification in improving speaking skills from learners’ perspectives of different ages and academic levels by reviewing 13 articles and journals from the year 2019 to 2023. The findings suggest incorporating the elements of gamification in the classroom benefits the learners in terms of increasing motivation, enhancing speaking skills and competency, increasing participation and engagement, creating a better learning environment, fostering students’ collaboration, reducing speaking anxiety and promoting overall positive perception towards gamification. This literature review aims to provide a better overview of the impact of gamification in enhancing learners' speaking skills and recommendations for future researchers to explore more benefits of gamification on speaking skills from both learners’ and instructors’ perspectives