HIRE ME!: Interactive Gaming Simulation as a Teaching Aid to Enhance English Speaking Skills Among UTHM Students

Abstract

English is the dominant language in many nations throughout the world. Nonetheless, despite the government’s efforts, Malaysian university students still see speaking English as a daunting endeavour. This article discusses how interactive simulation games may be used as a teaching tool to help Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) students improve their English-speaking abilities. Furthermore, the purpose of this research is to study the fundamentals of English-speaking skills, to design an informative and appealing interactive simulation gaming as a teaching aid, and to verify the effectiveness of interactive simulation gaming in enhancing English-speaking abilities. A mixed method design combining qualitative and quantitative data collection approaches was employed. A semi-structured interview was conducted with a professor from the Centre for Language Studies at UTHM, and the collected data were carefully verified with content analysis. Additionally, a questionnaire was distributed among 69 UTHM students from different faculties to gather insights on how to design an interactive and engaging gaming simulator for English speaking learning. Once the data have been collected, it will be thoroughly analysed and validate with descriptive analysis. The findings of this study offer valuable insights into the fundamental aspects of English language learning and provide opportunities for further improvement and refinement of the game. Future studies could focus on refining the game’s aesthetics and overall visual appeal, creating a more immersive and captivating gaming experience, and incorporating elements of gamification to further enhance motivation and drive sustained engagement. The game can be created by making it into Virtual reality, the players are able to immerse the gameplay of feeling in a real situation of being interview while answer the questions that has been given out by the game has provided.