Özet:

There are many methods and techniques towards effectiveness and success used in foreign language teaching. Among these methods and techniques, games have an important place. Game is a factor that prepares the ground for the active participation of all learners and makes learning and teaching fun. Thus, it is important to examine the studies about games in foreign language teaching and to investigate the effect of games on teaching. There is no comprehensive analysis study yet, in the literature review, based on the master's and doctoral theses related to foreign language teaching, explorising issues like the subject areas; educational level; university; year; foreign language; target group; subject area and game genre. This paper aims to examine the distribution of graduate thematic research on the use of game in foreign language teaching thesis; reveal the developments in the field and act as a guide for future research. Research follows the document analysis method of 762 postgraduate theses archived by the YÖK Publication Documentation Department whose subject was on game as educational tool. 41 theses were selected as sample about the use of game in foreign language teaching, however a total of 36 theses that were open-accessed were examined, 34 MA and 2 doctoral ones whereas 5 theses, which are not accessible, could not be examined. As a result of research, it is apparent that Selçuk University with 5 graduate thesis studies possesses the highest distribution among universities. Considering the distribution of foreign languages, English is the predominant foreign language whereas most these were written in 2007. As for the target group, it is mostly university students and adults, whereas the subject of game most used is vocabulary. Although technology-based games are included in the game genre, more theses involving non-technology-based games are produced.

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