Abstract:

This research examines the effect of a Facebook game (Pearl Peril) that requires English vocabulary knowledge on students’ English vocabulary development. The participants of the study include 7th year students in a private middle school in Turkey. Of the experimental models, this study uses a pretest-posttest control group model. Initially, a vocabulary test that was developed by the researchers was conducted on 81 middle school students in Edirne for analyzing validity and reliability. Subsequently, this test was applied as a pretest to both control and experiment groups. Following the application of the pretest, students in the experiment group were required to play Pearl Peril for one month. In the course of this one month, the words in Pearl Peril were taught to control group in regular classes as a part of the syllabus. At the end of this procedure, the vocabulary test that was used as a pretest was administered to both groups this time as a posttest. The study results show a significant difference between the test scores of the control and experiment groups. Thus, the current study is important in terms of exemplifying how to benefit from various social media applications in educational practices.

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