Implementing Tik-Tok Game Cards to Reorient ESL Learners' Temporal Preposition Acquisition

Abstract

English is one of the widely spoken languages in the world. The global language plays the role of a second language in Malaysia. It is a language that is widely spoken among communities after the Malay Language. Contrary to its status as the second language, there are cases where some of the learners in Malaysia still find difficulties in mastering the grammatical structures. Preposition is one of the crucial components in English syntax where it plays the role of bridging and governing a noun and pronoun. Preposition ranges from the aspect of direction, time and place. However, the prepositional usages are confusing especially for those ESL learners due to its polysemy nature. Thus, this study discusses the effects of game cards in improving ESL learners' temporal preposition acquisition. This study adapted a quasi-experimental design involving an intact classroom of 30 pupils of Year 6 (age 12) at a national-type (Chinese) primary school in a sub-urban area in Perak, Malaysia. The data were collected and were analyzed through the paired sample t-test to determine if the intervention was indeed effective in aiding the participants in the temporal preposition acquisition.