Gaming technologies as a means of increasing students' motivation to study foreign languages at the university

Abstract

This article is devoted to the study of the potential of gaming technologies as a means of increasing students' motivation to study English at a university. The relevance of the topic is due to the need to find effective pedagogical tools that can ensure the involvement of students in the educational process and a sustained interest in learning a foreign language. The purpose of the work is to identify the features of the influence of game techniques on the motivational sphere of students. The tasks include analyzing the theoretical foundations of game learning, developing and testing a set of game tasks, and evaluating their motivating effect. The research methodology is complex and includes theoretical analysis of scientific literature, pedagogical modeling, experimental work, quantitative and qualitative methods of collecting and processing empirical data (questionnaires, testing, observation, statistical analysis). The following main results were obtained during the study: 1) the expediency of integrating gaming technologies into the process of teaching English at a university is substantiated; 2) the author's classification of educational games according to the criterion of dominant motivational orientation is proposed; 3) the effectiveness of using the developed game complex to increase students' interest in learning English is experimentally proven. The theoretical significance of the study consists in clarifying the motivational mechanisms of game learning, deepening scientific ideas about the factors and ways of activating students' cognitive activity. The practical value of the work is determined by the possibility of widespread introduction of proven gaming techniques into the university practice of teaching English. The prospects for further study of the problem are related to the development of a holistic concept of game-based foreign language teaching in higher education.