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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF FIVE-MINUTE VOCABULARY REVISION
ACTIVITIES ON EVERY CLASS SESSION IN THE AIM OF ENHANCING
WORD RETENTION: A QUALITATIVE STUDY
Tong Thi Hue
Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry
Email: Lilyhuekhcb@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This research aims at enhancing word retention by using some games to apply for five–minute
vocabulary activities on every class session at Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry (HUFI).
Doing this, the researcher asked students about the difficulties in language learning, most of her
students at HUFI admitted that their lexicon was not sufficient enough so they had difficulties in
presenting exactly what they thought of orally and in written form. They also stated that sometimes
they found it challenging to reach adequate comprehension of some listening and reading texts due
to the appearance of some new words which were beyond their lexicon. This fact has disclosed the
importance of the mastery of sufficient vocabulary to help learners face with such challenge in
language learning. As a result of recognizing the vital role of vocabulary in learning a language,
Vietnamese students are taught lots of new words at school but the fact is that they forget lots of
these words after a certain time. From the above problems, the researcher does this study with the
hopes to enhance the effectiveness of using games and helps motivate NEM students in studying,
for instance, listening, speaking, reading and writing and a number of other skills involved in the
same game such as vocabulary and pronunciation (Lee, 2000). The process of experiment had
supervised to remark the results of students‟ progress during 4 weeks. Based on the observation of
a case study and findings from analyzing the questionnaire and interview, writing journals, the
research makes recommendations for implementing the innovation of vocabulary games. The
researcher has been the innovator and changed agent of innovation, 20 students in one
experimental class were clients
Keywords: enhance, retention, games, innovate, methodology.
1 INTRODUCTION
Vocabulary has been recognized as an important element for ESL learners since it appears in
every skill of language comprising listening, speaking, reading and writing skill. Lack of vocabulary
retention may bring lots of obstacles to learners in language acquisition. When recognizing this
obstacle, I myself try to help my students in enhancing word retention by using some games to
apply for five –minute vocabulary activities on every class session. I still remember the time when I
was at high school, I was taught around 30 – 40 new words when approaching a new English
lesson. Then, I was asked to learn by heart the meaning and spelling of these words at home. My
English teacher always checked our vocabulary by giving us the meaning of the new words in
equivalent L1 and requesting us to read and write the word on the board. To meet the teacher‟s
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requirement, rote learning was the only way that my classmates as well as I used to learn new
words. I wrote and pronounced new words in both L1 and L2 times and times until I could
remember the spelling and the meaning in L1 of new words. As a prize for such effort, I always got
the good score every time I was checked about the vocabulary but this fact did not satisfy me for a
long time. When the semester exam approached and we were asked to review what we had
learned to prepare for the exam. Disappointedly, I recognized that I forgot many words that I had
learned thoroughly before. I was put in an extremely embarrassing situation and my mind was
wandering around lots of questions relating to the strategy for leaning vocabulary. One day, I found
a book written by Vuong Dang introducing a strategy for learners to learn vocabulary effectively.
The strategy he used was to review vocabulary regularly after a certain time, mark the words
forgotten to learn again and review more. He stated that learners had to see a new word at least
five times before this word could be used and included in learners‟ „active‟ vocabulary. I followed
this advice and it worked out as a bonus. I could remember a large number of new words with
regular revision. The limitation with this strategy, however, is that it requires a hard work and
patience so when I used this strategy to instruct my students to learn vocabulary when I first
became an English teacher, not many students could be studious and patient enough to follow this.
Apart from this, many students do not have home environments that are conducive to sufficient
practice. This fact has put in me a strong desire to find out the strategy that both attracts students
to join in and helps them review vocabulary efficiently during class time. I remember when I was at
university; one of my foreign teachers organized a competition among groups to check our
knowledge. Though this was one form of reviewing knowledge, we were all excited to join in the
activities without any feelings of pressure. There were some questions that I could not figure out
the answers but the winning reply of the opponents helped me review what I forgot. It was also
surprising that I never forgot the knowledge that made me lose point in the competition again. From
this experience, my belief is that the fascinating game-like activities may not only help reduce the
pressure on learners but it is also an awesome way to assist reviewing knowledge. As a result, I
decide to set up fun five-minute activities on a regular class basis as my innovation to support
students to revise important vocabulary that they have learned during the course in order for them
to take „ownership‟ of these words and to start to use them confidently. It seems to some English
teachers that spending class time reviewing vocabulary may be, on the surface, a waste of
valuable time. It is, however, worth if learners‟ lexicon is enriched through these reviewing
activities.
I am teaching at Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry where most of my students seem to
have the same problem relating to vocabulary. I usually take advantage of the break time to share
with my students the difficulties they get with their study. They confided to me that they had ideas
but they found it challenging to express it in English as a result of lacking vocabulary. They even
tried to learn vocabulary at home but then they just remembered a small percentage of these
words. More disappointedly, they also stated that they sometimes reminded the word but did not
know how to use this word in the context. This fact has put in me a strong determination to find out
the most practical strategy to support my students in „owning‟ and mastering the usage of a
number of vocabularies. Compared to English teachers at high schools in Vietnam who are bound
in planned amount of time for each activity in a period of 45 minutes, it is more advantageous to me
since I am just assigned the amount of knowledge to teach my students during the course. I can
plan time and activities myself so I have more freedom to set up fascinating and useful activities for
my students. Taking this advantage, I make a decision to spend around five minutes every class
session on helping students review the key words they have learned from the beginning of the
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course. The participants chosen are a class of 20 students from HUFI who are at pre-intermediate
level.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
With the purpose of making the research comprehensive and convincing, the researcher now
spends time considering a few relevant concepts and studies of previous researchers related to the
subject.
Definitions
For this study, there are two terms that need to be defined:
The effect – the effect in this study is defined as the result of the process of reviewing vocabulary in
five minutes on every class session. In the end of this process, students can put the words
reviewed in their long-term memory.
Review vocabulary – In this study, the aspects of the word knowledge I expect my students to
review are limited to the phonology, morphology, syntactic and semantics.
Vocabox- the box that is used to contain word cards. It is the combination of two words
“vocabulary” and “box”.
Many experienced textbook and methodology manuals writers have argued that games are not just
time-filling activities but have a great educational value. W.R. Lee holds that most language games
make learners use the language instead of thinking about learning the correct forms (1979:2). He
also says that games should be treated as central not peripheral to the foreign language teaching
programme. A similar opinion is expressed by Richard-Amato, who believes games to be fun but
warns against overlooking their pedagogical value, particularly in foreign language teaching. There
are many advantages of using games. "Games can lower anxiety, thus making the acquisition of
input more likely" (Richard-Amato1988:147). They are highly motivating and entertaining, and they
can give shy students more opportunity to express their opinions and feelings (Hansen 1994:118).
They also enable learners to acquire new experiences within a foreign language which are not
always possible during a typical lesson. Furthermore, to quote Richard-Amato, they, "add diversion
to the regular classroom activities," break the ice, "[but also] they are used to introduce new ideas"
(1988:147). In the easy, relaxed atmosphere which is created by using games, students remember
things faster and better (Wierus and Wierus 1994:218). S. M. Silvers says many teachers are
enthusiastic about using games as "a teaching device," yet they often perceive games as mere
time-fillers, "a break from the monotony of drilling" or frivolous activities. He also claims that many
teachers often overlook the fact that in a relaxed atmosphere, real learning takes place, and
students use the language they have been exposed to and have practised earlier (1982:29).
Further support comes from Zdybiewska, who believes games to be a good way of practising
language, for they provide a model of what learners will use the language for in real life in the
future (1994:6). Not all games are appropriate for all students irrespective of their age (Siek-
Piskozub 1994:37). Different age groups require various topics, materials, and modes of games.
For example, children benefit most from games which require moving around, imitating a model,
competing between groups and the like (Siek-Piskozub 1994:38). Furthermore, structural games
that practise or reinforce a certain grammatical aspect of language have to relate to students'
abilities and prior knowledge. Games become difficult when the task or the topic is unsuitable or
outside the student's experience. Another factor influencing the choice of a game is its length and
the time necessary for its completion. Many games have a time limit, but according to Siek-
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Piskozub, the teacher can either allocate more or less time depending on the students' level, the
number of people in a group, or the knowledge of the rules of a game etc. (1994:43).
3 INNOVATION
Though the vital role of vocabulary has been admitted, most of English teachers tend to let
students study and review themselves at home. They seem to turn their back on helping students
review vocabulary in class due to the pressure of time. They only choose to find out the strategies
to teach or instruct students to learn vocabulary in the most efficient way. How to put taught
vocabulary, nonetheless, in students‟ long-term memory is still a debatable question among
educators. From the experience of myself as a student used-to-be and an English teacher with 19
years‟ seniority, the researcher believe what is fun, fascinating and competitive may help to embed
in students‟ memory. As a result, to innovate the process of teaching vocabulary and enhance
vocabulary retention, the researcher is going to spend five minutes every class session to lead
students in fun and competitive activities in the aim of reviewing and recycling all the words they
have learned from the beginning of the course. The question arisen here is how teachers can have
access to the words that have come up in the class from the start of the course. The idea is to
create a “word bag” to retain all words taught. What to prepare is a bag and blank word cards so
that after each class all new vocabulary should be written on separate blank word cards and put in
the word bag. On every class session, teacher can contingently pick word cards for appropriate
activities. One more point needed to mention here is that all activities are set up in the form of
games on the purpose of encouraging students to actively join in the review sessions since games
have been considered by many researchers to be useful and fun way in the process of teaching
and learning. Azriel, Erthal and Starr (2005) stated that, “games motivate students to actively
participate in the learning process, encourage teamwork and are as good as traditional means for
reviewing management theories and vocabulary” (p.9). In this study, I attempt to report the results
of the action research that I conducted to discover if using five-minute activities of reviewing and
recycling vocabulary in class on every class session is efficient in helping students to transfer their
receptive vocabulary into their long-term memories as productive vocabulary so that they can,
when necessary, use. The overall research question was, “What is the effect of five-minute
activities on every class session in reviewing vocabulary?” Specific research questions were:
1. Can students recall more words with five-minute activities?
2. Do they find these activities useful for them in promoting vocabulary retention?
3. Are all students eager to join in the activities? If not, why?
4 METHODOLOGY
The qualitative research methods were employed in this study to figure out the effect of five-minute
activities of reviewing vocabulary during class time. The researcher would like to know how
students‟ experiences help with their vocabulary revision and what progress they gain. To be more
specific, can five-minute games be applied as an efficient means to make students feel more
enjoyable and excited in reviewing vocabulary with the aim of enhancing vocabulary retention. To
achieve this goal, the researcher focused on the perception and attitudes of my students as well as
what students gained through words revision activities on every class session with games. This
study mainly relied on participants‟ feedback for the effect of the innovative five-minute activities.
The plan involved conducting a variety of games so that the researcher could see how students
reacted to this method of vocabulary revision. The researcher also wanted to find out if there were
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any problems that occurred during the process of conducting games. The following sections
provided the description of the context and research design.
Participants
The twenty students joined in this study are at pre-intermediate level from one class of HUFI. Most
of them are students from distinct majors. The researcher obtained their permission to participate in
this study through the informed consent form (attached in the Appendix). The students will be
called in this study as female or male students.
Timeline
The innovation lasted for 4 weeks before data was collected for analysis. At my school, each class
has six periods for 2 days in a week ( 1 period = 45 minutes), 2 periods are led by a foreign teacher
so I have only 4 remaining periods to teach my students. I have to be in charge of listening,
reading and writing skill. This means that I have 16 periods with eight distinct games to process my
innovation in a month.
Material
The target words are chosen from the words that students have learned from the beginning of the
course. These words are written in blank cards and put in a paper bag which is called by
VOCABAG. After each class session, the blank cards were distributed to students to write the
words they have just learned and then add these new cards into the vocabag.
Owing to the limited duration of the research, only eight activities were chosen to implement in this
study. Up to the types of activities chosen, the suitable tools were prepared for students to play
games. The activities were described in detail as follows:
The Quick Pick Game: divide students into two groups. Put the word cards on the desk word side
up. The teacher gives definitions or explanations of the words. Students race to pick up the word
that matches that definition. The first group with more cards is the winner.
Bingo: The students write down six words from the vocabulary they have learned. The teacher calls
out the definition. The students cross off the word if it is on their list. The first person with all six
words crossed out is the winner. The words must be spelt correctly to be a winner.
Quick Fire Quiz: Pull out a bunch of words from the bag. Give clues or definitions so the students
can guess the word on the card. The student who guesses the word correctly wins the card. The
winner is the student who wins the most cards at the end.
“Beep” sentence: divide students into four groups. Each group is given 5 word cards. Students
discuss in group to make sentences with given words. Then, each group takes turn to read aloud
the sentence to other group, replacing the word in the card with the sound “beep”. Other groups try
to guess what the word is. The group that gives the correct word wins a point.
Survivor spelling: divide students into two teams. Have students stand in two lines face-to-face.
Call out a vocabulary word. The first student begins by saying the word and giving the first letter,
the second student the second letter of the word, the third student the third letter, and so on until
the word is spelled correctly. If somebody makes a mistake, he must sit down. The last student
must then pronounce the word correctly and give a definition in order to stay standing. In the end,
the group with more students standing wins the game.
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Words beginning with a given letter: The teacher chooses a letter from the alphabet. Then each
student must say a word that begins with that letter. If a student repeats a word that has already
been said, then he/ she is out of the game. The game ends when only one student remains. That
student is the winner.
Bang bang: divide students into two teams standing in two lines face-to-face. Each student takes
turn to answer the teacher‟s question. If the answer is correct, student shoots their opponent. The
student who is shot will be knocked out. In the end, the team with more alive students will be the
winner.
Quick write: Students are divided into two teams standing in front of the board. The teacher gives
the definition or explanation of the word students have learned, the first students of two lines run to
the board to write down the word. The student who is quicker at writing the correct answer will win
one point for their team. Thereafter, these first students run to the end of their teams‟ queues to
resign the right of giving the answer to the second students
5 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Direct observation: During the process of five-minute games, I observed all students and took brief
notes relating to whether they enthusiastically joined in the activities or not. If I find any students
who do not join in the activities, I will find out the reasons by observing their attitudes to see if it‟s
because of the boring activities, the students‟ lack of retention or shyness. To authenticate my
judgment, such students were interviewed right after the class session to discover the prompt
reasons of what hindered them to take part in the games. Then, all of this information was rewritten
in a small diary which was then organized into specific themes including students‟ attitudes,
students‟ participation and the percentage of the words students could recall.
Journal: In the end of the action research, all students were then required to write a journal entries
about their feelings or thinking about whether the five –minute activities on every class session
helped them remember more words or not. All students were given a suggested outline to write the
journal. Two of the students‟ journals will be attached in the Appendix for reference.
Focus group interview: A group of active and enthusiastic students were chosen to be interviewed
to get their feedback of the five-minute activities. The open-ended questions for interview will be
attached in the Appendix. All interviews were recorded
Survey: A written questionnaire and open ended surveys about ideas, perceptions and thoughts
were distributed to students at the end of the process to get students‟ reflect of the effectiveness of
the five-minute innovation.
6 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
After collecting data through observation, interviewing students, and students‟ journal and from my
reflections of applying the five-minute games as the innovative way to review vocabulary on every
class session, I have come to some findings that I believe to be helpful for teacher to support
students in vocabulary revision. The results will be displayed in four subsections, (1) recalling
words and promoting vocabulary retention, (2) students‟ attitude and participation and (3)
unanticipated problems
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1. Recalling words and promoting vocabulary retention
Although games were mainly applied by many teachers to create a relaxed, pleasant learning
atmosphere in the classrooms, I strongly believed the games I implemented in my innovation would
be more than just fun. These types of revision games should also promote recalling vocabulary in
the shortest time and enhance the word retention among language learners. Correspondingly, it
was quite essential to find out whether or not my students made any progress in recalling words
they had learned and retaining more words in their mind. The action research, nonetheless, was
conducted in a limited time of one month with only 16 periods so it was hard to assess
comprehensively what students had achieved.
From the survey, lots of students stated that they enjoyed the game named “quick pick game” and
“quick write” the best since these activities made them more sharp-witted. Some students also
expressed when interviewed that to defeat their opponents, their mind had to be faster to recall the
word and their hands had to pick up the word cards or write down the words more promptly than
their opponents. Such competition brought them lots of fun and some students even disclosed that
compared to “survivor spelling”, and “word beginning with”, they felt less ashamed as being lost
since these sort of games might save their face. More specifically, even if they did not recall out the
words, they still picked up randomly any cards. On the contrary, in “survivor spelling” and “word
beginning with”, students easily got embarrassed while all eyes concentrated on them when they
took their turns and could not get the answer. Meanwhile, 100% of students said they hated “bingo”
games , which were really out of my thinking since as I implemented to another class, students
showed out to be really excited to play this game and they asked me to play this game more than
twice. My students wrote in the questionnaire that “bingo” should not be conducted in the class
anymore since it was quite boring and students were passive to join in the game. Apart from this,
“survivor spelling game” also received the displeasure from around 20% of students as this games
turned out to be time-consuming and not really appealing.
Regarding the effectiveness of the innovation, twenty students admitted that the five-minute
activities were really beneficial to them in reviewing and retaining vocabulary. One male student
wrote in his journal that the five-minute activities were so funny and delighting. That‟s why the
words appearing in the games became impressive to him, which helped him remember the word for
longer time. Some students said they remembered a word when they were faster than their
partners in the game to call out the word while other students stated that they would never forget
the word that made them lose the game. Beside, some prominent students confided to me that
after listening to my vocabulary questions, they tried to „search‟ the word in their mind in the
shortest time. This action made them more flexible in recalling words so such activities also brought
them long-term benefits. In the following quote, one male student expressed his perception of the
effectiveness of the games to him in his journal:
“I hardly review vocabulary at home. I know I‟m very lazy and I wanna change. My sister advised
that “you should make the sentence with words. This will make you remember the words longer”.
My sister instructed me many things but I take it out of my head. I just remember all the vocabulary
that I had learned in the class games. I want to join in every game in this class because these help
me recall and remember more words. Maybe I‟m interested in funny things but studying is so boring
for me. For this reason I want to join games play or funny class to study”
During the games, many students were really quick at answering and their answers were all
accurate; others sometimes could not give the correct answers but they could learn from their
partners‟ answers. Some students also revealed in their journal that before coming to class, they
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spent time reviewing vocabulary so that they could win all the games in the class. This fact shows
that the competitive characteristics of the activities arose extrinsic motivation in students to have
the good habit of revising vocabulary before class time. .
2. Students’ attitude and participation
When being asked about the way of revising vocabulary at home, most students said that they
were lazy at reviewing vocabulary themselves at home unless they had to prepare for the exam.
Some students admitted that they just review vocabulary before the exam or to recite to the teacher
and they easily forgot all of these words after a short time when they do not have any pressures to
remember those words any more. Luckily, 10 students wrote in their journal that they sometimes
review vocabulary at home in which six students said that they wrote and pronounced the words
many times until they remember the words; three students revealed they covered Vietnamese
words and tried to recall English words and vice versa; one female student usually revised
vocabulary with her friend in the break time at school. Disappointedly, all students admitted that
they did not maintain the habit of reviewing vocabulary at home. They just did this when they had
inspiration or pressure to do that leading to short-time word retention in their brain.
Most of the learners were willing to join in the activities and they tried their best to be the winners
although on the first days of applying these games, some students turned out to be shy to join the
games. These shy students were then interviewed and they said they rarely play such games at
school so they felt rather afraid of taking part in these activities. Besides, they did not understand
clearly the process of the games so they chose to keep silent to save their face. When asked about
their feeling of the games, they said they liked the relaxing atmosphere that games brought to the
classroom, which did not exist at their school. In the end of the interview, they told me that they
would surely participate in the games at the following time. Practically, on the third day of
implementing games in the class, the above shy students did not show out to be passive any more.
On the contrary, they enthusiastically joined the games and openly cooperated with their
teammates to win the score. Written in one female student‟s journal, he showed his determination
to defeat their opponents in all games, “when I lose any partners, I feel really jealous and I secretly
told myself 1never to lose again”. This fact shows that games brought students the competitiveness
and the motivation to recall vocabulary more promptly. To do this, it is vital for such students to
review all learned vocabulary thoroughly before coming to class to join the games.
Although some students sometimes passed the buck to their partner to give the answer as they
were not sure of their answer, most students expressed their satisfaction after the games and
many of them wanted to play more as they said those games were not only fun but also helpful for
them to practice recalling words fast. Ten students made a request in their journal that the time of
these activities should be extended to ten minutes since five minutes was too short to satisfy them
in the games. In brief, it was motivating for me to know that most of my students showed their
pleasant feelings and positive attitudes towards spending five minutes every class session
reviewing vocabulary.
3. Unanticipated problems
It is my belief at first blush that students would not be put in any difficulties when joining in active
and fascinating game-like activities. Journal reflections from my own experience, observations and
interviews, nonetheless, showed that some troubles occurred during the process of conducting
games.
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The most salient obstacle is the lack of cooperation among members in a group. Most games were
organized in the form of friendly competition which requires all students‟ involvement so it is
essential for all members in a team to show their cooperative attitudes. One attempt to conduct the
game “beep sentence” was not really successful. Some students just sat silently without
cooperating with their teammates to produce the sentences or in other words the good students
dominated the group so the other students turned out to be shy to join in the games as one student
expressed in his journal. When interviewed, three students recognized that they did not have good
lexicon and good knowledge of grammar to produce good sentences so they gave the chance to
good students to make better sentences for their teams.
Teachers‟ explanation also plays a key role in the success of the game but it is not a good way to
explain the rules in Vietnamese. Some students turned out to be embarrassed when the game
started since they did not get what the teacher said in English. Fortunately, other students, who
grasped precisely what procedures to follow, re-explained in L1 to their teammates and the game
went smoothly. Apart from this, most students had tendency to use only their mother tongue to
discuss with their teammates instead of using English, which is really a stumbling block in
practicing communicative skill in learning English. From my own experience, it is not easy to control
the use of first language in classrooms when using games as a tool to practice English. To limit
this, I myself used to create the rule that any teams using L1 during the game would be subtracted
one score and it worked well but sometimes utilizing mother tongue should be allowed to guarantee
the success of the game.
Another matter arisen during the process of conducting the activities includes students‟ tricky
attitudes to get score for their own team. As evidence of this, when the “quick pick game” was
implemented, one boy tried to use his strength to keep a girl from the opponent team away from the
word cards so that he could have more time to choose and pick the correct card. Such incident
caused the displeasure among students from the girl‟s team so I had to cross out one point of the
boy‟s team.
One more unavoidable problem is that during the game, students tended to whisper the answer to
their partner when he or she failed to recall the exact word. In that case, even though the team
could win the point, it‟s not sure whether the student giving the answer really knew the word or not.
Luckily, when being interviewed, that student stated that at first he did not recall the word but when
being supported from teammates, he could clearly remember the word and this word would be
retained in his mind since he would never forget the moment when he was put under pressure of
recalling this word.
One minor but worth considering issue related to using games to review words is while playing
games some students proved to be lost face of their failure to win score for their team leading to
the reserved attitudes to join in the game like “quick write” or “bang bang”. Some students chose
way to save their face by shifting their turns to their better partner. Nevertheless, this should still be
accepted since such students disclosed as interviewed that they still learnt the word they had
forgotten from their friends‟ answers.
The last but not least obstacle arisen during the game is breaking the time limit. Five minutes is
sometimes proven to be so short to satisfy students‟ eagerness in the game. Found in students‟
journals and questionnaire, many students suggested expanding the duration to 10 minutes per
class session. Practically, I sometimes lengthened the time of the activities to 10 minutes owing to
the large number of words chosen to review one session. Consequently, the remaining duration
was not enough to keep up with the lesson schedule. Learning from this experience, teacher
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should limit the number of words to review on one class session to follow the time limit. In more
detail, when applying the game “word beginning with”, it was easy for teachers to break the time
limit especially when students had good lexicon since teachers could not find out the winner as the
time was over
7 CONCLUSION
It can not be denied that vocabulary plays a vital role in language learning and how to teach and
learn vocabulary efficiently has attracted consideration from lots of researchers and educators.
However, how to review vocabulary effectively has not been concerned properly from both teachers
and learners and also researchers since not many researches relating to revising vocabulary have
been found. Hoping that this study may help learners recognize the importance of regular revision
of vocabulary and also emphasize the effectiveness of five-minute activities during class time so
that language teachers may lend their hand to students in enriching their lexicon not just by
theoretically instructing how to learn vocabulary but with practical assistance in class to lessen the
burden for students in accumulating vocabulary. Games were mainly utilized in this innovation not
only to attract students but the main aim is to bring them good impression of reviewing vocabulary
so that they can be inspired to review learned words themselves at home. Even though it is
commonly believed that games are just for fun and usually applied in the classroom by many
language teachers as time-filling activity, my research reveals that games have valuably
contributed to vocabulary reviewing and retaining words more easily in a pleasant atmosphere.
Accordingly, the role of games in learning language should not be denied. However, it is necessary
for teachers to select suitable games based on cultural context of the classroom.
Regarding the effectiveness of the five-minute activity, this innovation is proven to be successful in
some aspects. First of all, from students‟ journal and answers as interviewed it is easily recognized
that most students recognize the importance of regular revising vocabulary in enriching vocabulary
after joining in this innovation. Some studious students admitted that they just paid attention to
learning vocabulary every day and tried to use these words in communication while ignoring
reviewing learned words regularly. They used to believe that just applying learned words in
communicating and in writing might help them remember the words longer but the fact showed that
they were only able to use few words they had learned while there were still many other words that
they did not have context to use. That‟s why they easily forgot lots of words that they spent hard
time learning by heart. However, by using vocabox they could review all of the words that they had
learned leading to the capacity of retaining more words. Next, from the survey, interview and
students‟ journal, it is clear that the five-minute activity helps students recall the words faster and
faster since many students had determination to defeat their friends. This partly helps to sharpen
students‟ mind in recalling words while communicating or writing. Apart from this, some wrote in
their journal that they tried to review all vocabulary before coming to class just because they did not
want to lose their partners in the games, which means that this innovation has contributed to
forming good habit of revising vocabulary before class time among language learners. Last but not
least, all students marked the “Yes” box to the question “Is spending five minutes on every class
session to review vocabulary really useful for you to recall more words?” in the questionnaire. This
fact reflects the success of the innovation at least in my students‟ perception though the
effectiveness of my innovation still needs more research in various contexts.
PROCEEDINGS OF ELT UPGRADES 2019: A FOCUS ON METHODOLOGY - ISBN:978-604-67-1450-7
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