GAMIFYING VOCABULARY LEARNING: A MOODLE-BASED LEARNING ACTIVITY FOR THE
ACADEMIC WORD LIST INTRODUCTION
The term ‘gamification’ was first introduced in 2002 (Marczewski, 2012) and was later defined as the use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts (Deterding, Dixon, Khaled, & Nacke, 2011). Although rooted in business, gamification has emerged as a trend in education since 2010. For example, from analysing evidence in 14 studies, Garland (2015) reported that it typically had a positive effect in educational settings. In the field of second language teaching, Flores (2015) argues that integrating a gamification element into technology-based learning can motivate learners to progress from one learning stage to another, as they generally enjoy receiving recognition of achievement and then seek further similar reward.
Abrams and Walsh (2014) also described their own teaching experiences with gamified vocabulary teaching, commenting that gamification could meet students’ needs and support learning through differentiated approaches. However, little previous research has investigated how gamification could help young adult second-language learners acquire academic vocabulary. When attending an international Anglophone university, students are likely to encounter formal vocabulary commonly used in academic contexts. Coxhead’s Academic Word List (AWL) (2000) containing 570- word families frequently used across academic texts has become a common teaching tool. However, later research, such as Hyland and Tse (2007), has argued that vocabulary needs may differ significantly
