Content server1 English language learning

Lu, F. C., & Chang, B. (2016). Role-Play Game-Enhanced English for a Specific-Purpose Vocabulary-Acquisition Framework.
Educational Technology & Society, 19 (2), 367–377.

Role-Play Game-Enhanced English for a Specific-Purpose VocabularyAcquisition Framework
Fang-Chen Lu and Ben Chang*
Graduate Institute of Learning and Instruction, National Central University, Taoyuan City, Taiwan //
//
*
Corresponding author
(Submitted April 15, 2015; Revised July 9, 2015; Accepted September 3, 2015)
ABSTRACT
With the advantages of an engaged and authentic role-play game (RPG), this study aims to develop an RPGenhanced English for specific purposes (ESP) vocabulary-acquisition framework, providing teachers and
students a systematic way to incorporate RPG into ESP learning. The framework is composed of five parts:
goal, three-level vocabulary sets, RPG contexts, a vocabulary test, and a participation questionnaire. In the
perspective of three-level vocabulary sets, they are semantic sets, communicative sets, and situational sets. With
regard to the vocabulary test, there are vocabulary assessment for semantic sets, vocabulary assessment for
communicative sets, and vocabulary assessment for situational sets. In addition, the participation questionnaire
classifies the students’ participation scale into personal interest, external expectations, social contact, and social
stimulation. To evaluate the framework effectiveness, eighty northern Taiwan vocational high school secondyear students, divided into an experimental group and a control group, were recruited to participate in this study.
The results confirmed that the framework can facilitate students’ ESP vocabulary acquisition in vocabulary
assessment for situational sets. Meanwhile, the framework was effective in promoting students’ social
participation, especially on external expectations and social contact perspectives.

Keywords
RPG_ESP framework, Semantic sets, Communicative sets, Situational sets, Students’ participation scale

Introduction
With the rapid development of business communities around the world, English-language skills have been
considered an important ability needed to compete in the global economy. One of the goals of foreign-language
education for vocational educational programs is to provide students with the foreign-language ability and advanced
professional knowledge necessary to succeed in the job market. This development trend has caused English for

specific purposes (ESP) instruction to be more greatly emphasized in the last few years at vocational high schools in
Taiwan (Tsai & Davis, 2008).
ESP is well known as a learner-centered and content-based approach to teaching English as a foreign language that
meets the needs of learners who need to learn English for use in their specific fields, such as business, science,
technology, or academic learning (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). However, there are some problems in the
development of ESP courses. Porcaro (2001) indicated that authentic materials and specific knowledge were not
provided in ESP courses. ESP has been looked upon as a neglected subject in vocational high schools because there
is still room for improvement for ESP course design and implementation.
Authentic materials illustrate how English is used naturally by native speakers. Nunan and Miller (1995) defined
authentic materials as those that were not created or edited expressly for language learners. One of the most
challenging tasks constantly facing ESP teachers is how to bring authentic materials into the classroom. An
advantage of role-play-game-based (RPG-based) learning, students are able to develop their own strategies for
dealing with real language and stimulate their motivation to learn. Moreover, Tsai and Davis (2008) claimed that
ESP concentrates more on language in context than on teaching grammar and language structures; therefore,
authentic contexts and language use in typical work situations raise interest in learning ESP. RPGs, in which students
are encouraged to come across different authentic materials related to their study subject, are highly graphical 2D or
3D video games played online, allowing individuals to interact not only with the gaming software but also with the
avatars of other players through their self-created digital avatars (Yip & Kwan, 2006). The learning principle behind
RPGs might be fact that thousands of participants can be online interacting with one another at the same time,
engaging in a 3D online representation of actual locations (Childress & Braswell, 2006). Moreover, virtual learning
ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). This article of the Journal of Educational Technology & Society is available under Creative Commons CC-BY-ND-NC
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in an RPG environment provides a space for constructive learning and immerses learners in a meaningful
communication simulated to authentic practices (Chuang, Chang & Chen, 2014). It is recommended that RPG be
implemented in the contexts where students need to learn the knowledge and skills of English and practice them in
authentic ways, as they provide active interactions and collaborations among learners and address cognitive issues

and foster active learning.

Situational
Sets

SS1

SSk: [Situational Session]
{ a combination of Cj}
SS1: {C1: confirm, purchase
C2: option, vegetarian
C3: ingredient, appetite}
Ex: [A long and exhausting hike gave Mark a good appetite, so he
ordered a big meal.]
M:
W:
M:
W:
M:
W:
M:
W:

Excuse me, madam.
Yes? What can I do for you, sir?
I’d like to confirm my purchase order placed online
yesterday.
Do you have the reservation number?
Yes, here it is. But I could not find any option for a
vegetarian.

(A while later.) My apologies, sir. Here is a new bowl of
vegetable soup for you and a green salad, on the house.
Pardon me, but one of the ingredients is not for
vegetarians and I’ve lost my appetite.
I’m awfully sorry, sir. I’ll have the chef cook you another
one.

Vocabulary assessment
for situational sets

SS2

Factor 1: Personal interest Factor 2: External expectations Factor 3: Social contact Factor 4: Social stimulation

C2

Participation questionnaire for RPG_ESP vocabulary acquisition

C1

Cj: [Communicative Session Description]
{Sentence | Si}
C1: {Sentence1 | S1, S2}
C2: {Sentence2 | S3, S4}
C3: {Sentence3 | S5, S6}
Ex: [Dealing with Complaints]
C1: {I’d like to confirm my purchase order placed online yesterday. |
confirm, purchase}
C2: {But I could not find any option for a vegetarian. | option,
vegetarian}

C3: {Pardon me, but one of the ingredients is not for vegetarians and
I’ve lost my appetite. | ingredient, appetite}

Participation
Scale Assess.

Vocabulary assessment
for communicative sets

Communicative
Sets

Voc.
Assess.

Vocabulary assessment for
semantic sets

RPG_ESP Framework Goal: {Mission Statements & Need Description}
Using ChefVille* game to Facilitate ESP Vocabulary Acquisition
Set /
Feature
Icon
Semantic
Si: {word/synonym+,
Sets
antonym-}
Ex: [Word/synonym+, antonym-]
S1: {confirm/check+, deny-}
S2: {purchase/acquire+, buy+}

S3: {option/choice+, substitute+}
S4: {vegetarian/meat-}
S5: {ingredient/component+}
S6: {appetite/desire+, hunger+}

M: Mark; W: Waitress
RPG Contexts: {RPG Environment Description}
Online Game: Restaurant settings of ChefVille
*

ChefVille is an online RPG game available on Facebook for free
Figure 1. RPG_ESP framework
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The teaching of ESP vocabulary follows similar principles of English for general purposes (EGP); however, there is
still room for ESP course teaching. The majority of educators consider the traditional lecture approach to ESP course
implementation ineffective compared to active learning methods (Marbach-Ad, Seal & Sokolove, 2001). In addition,
inappropriate instruction has the potential problem of leading to poor ESP course development (Kavaliauskiene,
2003). With the advantage of RPG-based learning environment, this study aims to develop an RPG-enhanced ESP
vocabulary-acquisition framework, providing teachers and students a systematic way to incorporate RPG into ESP
learning. Based on the framework, we further studied students’ ESP vocabulary effectiveness, and second, sought
their participation scale for the framework in a Facebook online RPG game, ChefVille, to facilitate ESP vocabulary
learning.

Role-play-game-supported English for specific purposes framework
To help students acquire more ESP vocabulary in an RPG learning environment, this study developed the RPG_ESP
framework, which supplements students with ESP vocabulary acquisition. Figure 1 illustrates how RPG_ESP
framework is applied to enhance students’ recognition and comprehension of ESP vocabulary. The framework aims
to help students acquire more ESP vocabulary using organizing words to be learned in an RPG learning environment

with the RPG_ESP framework availability based on semantic sets, communicative sets, and situational sets. The
RPG_ESP framework may be advantageous to integrate the above three levels of ESP vocabulary acquisition in an
RPG-enhanced learning environment. More specifically, this study proposed an RPG_ESP framework that contains
five parts: the framework goal, three levels (semantic sets, communicative sets and situational sets to ESP
vocabulary acquisition), RPG contexts, ESP vocabulary effectiveness, and students’ participation scale assessment.
ESP vocabulary acquisition through three levels mentioned above increases their associative meaningfulness and is
not easily forgotten. Nattinger (1980) argues that vocabularies need to be taught through techniques that organize
vocabulary items to be learned. He stresses the importance of organizing items in terms of their meanings. Gairns
and Redman (1986) point out that organizing lexical items semantically is very valuable in vocabulary learning.
Similarly, Eyraud et al. (2000) also observe that knowledge of semantic relationship enables learners to exploit the
meaning potential of words. That is, students can access the various shades of meanings of words, which would only
be apparent when the words are studied in relation to each other.
The vocabulary test used in assessing students’ ESP vocabulary acquisition was comprised of three sections. Section
I was a vocabulary assessment containing ten items covering words of semantic sets. Section II contained ten
questions from communicative sets. In these two sections, there are twenty words randomly chosen from ChefVille’s
daily questions. Section III included ten questions elicited from situational sets. ChefVille, as an instance of the
framework, affords a platform to facilitate ESP vocabulary acquisition (as shown in gray in Figure 1). Thus, such a
framework is expected to supplement students with recognition and comprehension of ESP vocabulary and motivate
them to participate in an RPG-enhanced learning environment.

Semantic sets
Semantic sets contain words linked together by inferential relationships relating words together on the basis of
meaning. Two common vocabulary techniques that link words in such a way are synonym and antonym. A synonym
refers to words that are similar in meaning. Synonym as a technique has several advantages in vocabulary learning. It
helps learners to learn the unfamiliar words in terms of the familiar. The meaning of an unknown word can be
explained in terms of the word whose meaning is known. It also teaches learners the various lexical restrictions of
the use of a given set of words. For instance, the words child and kid are synonyms, but they cannot be used
interchangeably. The former seems to be more appropriate in formal situation, whereas the latter seems to be “right”
in an informal situation. Similarly, we have positive and negative synonyms like thrifty and stingy; core and
intensifier words such as mad and furious, which we may use depending on the kind of meaning we want to convey

(Nattinger, 1980).
Antonym refers to words that are opposite in meaning. Antonym takes a variety of forms. The two basic forms are
gradable and upgradeable opposites. Gradable opposites are opposites with degrees in between. An example of this
kind of oppositeness could be the words hot and cold. The two words are gradable opposites because other words
that can show different degrees of hotness or coldness can come between them, such as warm and tepid. Upgradeable
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opposites, on the other hand, have a one-or-the-other kind of relationship. An example of upgradeable opposites is
the oppositeness between the words male and female. The two words are not gradable because they are mutually
exclusive (Atkins, Banteyirga & Mohammed, 1996). Antonym as technique plays a similar role in vocabulary
learning to synonym.

Communicative sets
Communicative sets are words enclosed by semantic sets intended to deal with an authentic conversation situation
(Canale & Swain, 1980). Another important function in communicative sets is for interpersonal relationship.
Interpersonal skills are strategies employed by language users for facilitating language learning and enhancing
communicative performance (Bialystok, 1990). As an individual interacts with his/her knowledgeable peers, learning
becomes more supported, the user’s interest can be sustained, and s/he would get more involved in their learning and,
thus, communicative competence can be evolved through the social interactions. Learning occurs when individuals
are engaged in meaningful and authentic social activities (Vygotsky, 1978). The zone of proximal
development (ZPD) is defined by Wertsch (1985) as “the distance between the child’s actual developmental levels as
determined by independent problem solving and the higher level of potential development as determined through
problem solving under adult guidance and in collaboration with more capable peers” (pp. 67–68).

Situational sets
Situational sets in vocabulary learning require the use of “general concepts” to bring together the specifics. They
refer to the “cohesive chains” of relationships between words of communicative sets in a discourse (as shown in
Figure 2). The technique stresses the need for using the context or situation in which words appear as an organizing
principle. For example, cluster words such as “reservation,” “grilled salmon,” “salad dressing,” “appetite,” and “slow

service” revolve around the central concept of “customer” in restaurant setting.
The organizing words to facilitate learning and recall is advocated by many researchers (Atkins, Banteyirga &
Mohammed, 1996). Tinkham (1997) compared the learning of situational sets with that of sets of unrelated words in
vocabulary learning. The results revealed that situation-related words─“library,” “whisper” and “quiet,” and “beach,”
“sunny” and “swim”─were easier to learn than unrelated words─“fork,” “count” and “brave.” Thus, it is worthwhile
for teachers to teach students vocabulary in specific situations.
Gairns and Redman (1986) also see another advantage of grouping conceptually related words together: it increases
the chance for learners to draw on their knowledge of the world, making the process of learning and retrieval easier.
Situational sets in vocabulary learning seem to be similar to what the model calls advance organizers, for it requires
the use of “general concepts” to bring together the specifics. The example of a situational set was presented as the
following (as shown in Figure 2).

Figure 2. Situational sets
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RPG contexts: Restaurant settings of ChefVille
ChefVille is the game-based learning material that learners were assigned to use. ChefVille is one of Facebook’s
online games; it lets users run their own restaurant, do the shopping, enquiry and purchase, make dishes, and serve
the dishes to build up their unique restaurants (as shown in Figure 3). In addition, it may be a feasibly situated
learning environment for problems solving and tasks completion in order to achieve a goal (as shown in Figure 4).

Figure 3. Authenticity of the game ChefVille

Figure 4. Situatedness of the game ChefVille
At first step, learners have to create their own character and then hire their friends as employees. The next step, they
have to try best to collect required ingredients to level up different dishes in order to get more experience points.
There are many ways to collect ingredients. For instance, they will get daily ingredients for logging in, passing the
daily question, or completing the challenges and tasks. With these actions, the learners’ participation scale would be
increased.

By accessing this vocabulary frequently for the necessary purpose of playing the game, learners could learn more
vocabulary items related to a real-life situation. Additionally, learners can interact with others by visiting friends’ and
others’ restaurants, leaving messages, and even trading ingredients with them to create a menu. Therefore, learners
could learn more hospitality-related vocabulary by immersing themselves in the situation.

Vocabulary-acquisition assessment
The study estimated the size of participants’ current English vocabulary in order to compare it to their vocabulary
acquisition when RPG_ESP framework was made available. The vocabulary test was administered as the post-test,
with a total score of 100 developed for this study. The participants needed to take the vocabulary test comprising
thirty items and was divided into three sections. Section I was a vocabulary assessment containing ten items covering
words of semantic sets. Section II contained ten questions from communicative sets. In these two sections, there are
twenty words randomly chosen from ChefVille’s daily questions. Section III included ten questions eliciting from
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situational sets. The score obtained from the post-test was employed to identify their learning achievement. Figure 5
is an example for the testing items purposed to implement the effectiveness of ESP vocabulary acquisition using
RPG_ESP framework.
Part I: Vocabulary assessment for semantic sets
Examples:
1. Synonym:
( ) (1)purchase
( ) (2)option
( ) (3)ingredient
( ) (4)appetite
(a)choice
(b)chef
(c)cashier
(d)desire
(e)component

(f)buy
2. Antonym:
( ) (5)confirm
( ) (6)vegetarian
(a)check
(b)deny
(d)reserve
(e)order
……

(c)hunger
(f)meat

Part II: Vocabulary assessment for communicative sets
Examples:
1. ( ) How many ____________ are available for dessert
on the menu?
(a)souvenirs
(b)services
(c)options
2. ( ) Exercise gave her a good ____________, so she
ordered a big meal.
(a)appetite
(b)apology
(c)applause
……

Part III: Vocabulary assessment for situational sets
Examples:
[A long and exhausting hike gave Mark a good appetite,

so he ordered a big meal.]
M: Excuse me, Madam.
W: Yes? What can I do for you, sir?
M: I’d like to (1) confirm my purchase order placed
online yesterday.
W: Do you have the reservation number?
M: Yes, here it is. But I could not find any option for a
vegetarian.
W: (A while later.) My apologies, sir. Here is a new bowl
of vegetable soup for you and a green salad, on the
house.
M: Pardon me, but one of the (2) ingredients is not for
vegetarians and I’ve lost my appetite.
W: I’m awfully sorry, sir. I’ll have the chef cook you
another one.
M: Mark; W: Waitress
1. ( ) (a)check
(b)book
(c)contact
2. ( ) (a)components (b)inventories (c)requests
.… …

Figure 5. Hospitality example for vocabulary test items

Participation scale
The questionnaire distributed to students revealed their participation scale for the framework in an RPG game
ChefVille to facilitate ESP vocabulary learning. The questionnaire employed in the present study was adapted from
the educational participation scale (EPS) proposed by Boshier (1991). A total of twenty items were retained in the
final version of the survey and it has a proper reliability (α = .96), suggesting that they had high reliability in
assessing the high school students’ participation for Facebook online game ChefVille.

In addition, the questionnaire classifies the features of students’ participation into the following four scales: personal
interest, external expectations, social contact and social stimulation. All items in the perceived participation degree
were presented using a five-point Likert scale, from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The details of the four
scales are as follows:
 Personal interest: people who score highly on this scale participate in a Facebook online game, ChefVille, for
their own interest. That is, they care about the inherent joy of the Facebook online game ChefVille, which impels
their participation. A sample item of this scale is “I learn for the joy of it while participating in the Facebook
online game ChefVille.”
 External expectations: people score highly on this scale participate in the Facebook online game ChefVille
because of the expectations from someone at school. A sample item of this scale is “I participate in Facebook
online game ChefVille because my peers encourage me to.”

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


Social contact: people who score highly on this scale participate in the Facebook online game ChefVille because
of the joy of interacting with others. A sample item of this scale is “I participate in the Facebook online game
ChefVille to make more friends with the same interest.”
Social stimulation: people who score highly on this scale are usually lonely or bored in regular life or teaching,
and they participate in the Facebook online game ChefVille to meet others and to grapple with the problems in
their social life. A sample item of this scale is “I participate in the Facebook online game ChefVille to take a
break from my routine.”

Framework study
Research design
The study was designed to answer the two following research questions: (1) Do students actually acquire more ESP
vocabulary using the RPG_ESP framework? and (2) What is the students’ participation scale for the framework in an

RPG game, ChefVille, to facilitate ESP vocabulary learning? We investigated the first question by constructing and
administering a vocabulary test reviewed by two high school English teachers to ensure the appropriate level for the
participants. We investigated the second question via framing and implementing a participation questionnaire.

Procedure and instruments
The study purposed to provide a solution to the problem of limited ESP vocabulary acquisition if the RPG_ESP
framework were made available. ChefVille is one of the English-language games on Facebook selected for display,
and
learners
will
learn
vocabulary related
to
a
real-life
situation
from this
game.
( The experimental process, shown in Figure 6, consisted of three steps. The
instructions and grading criteria in the vocabulary test were stated to ensure that the participants truly understand
what they were to be assessed on. The participants had thirty minutes to finish the vocabulary test, which consisted
of thirty items, and was divided into three sections as a pre-test. A total of eighty participants were assigned to
engage in the RPG environment approximately twenty hours spread over one month. The experimental group had
access to the RPG_ESP framework, while the other forty participants did not. The game was regarded as participants’
additional English learning tool; therefore, they were expected to learn autonomously, with no stress, and acquire
vocabulary spontaneously. After that, both groups answered the vocabulary test within thirty minutes as a post-test.
Finally, the questionnaire was distributed to both groups.

Experimental group
Control group

Introduction & pre-test administration

Logging in to the Facebook online game
ChefVille with RPG_ESP framework
availability

Logging in to the Facebook online game
ChefVille without RPG_ESP framework
availability

Time
30 minutes

20 hours

Post-test administration

30 minutes

Questionnaire distribution

20 minutes

Figure 6. Experimental flow

Data collection and analysis
To answer the first research question, an independent-samples t-test was conducted to answer the question, “Do
students acquire more ESP vocabulary using the RPG_ESP framework?” The purpose for this analysis was to
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compare the performance between the experimental group, who were assigned to engage in the RPG environment
with RPG_ESP framework availability and the control group, without RPG_ESP framework availability. The
vocabulary test was used to demonstrate the potential quantitative differences between ESP vocabulary acquisition
facilitated with and without the RPG_ESP framework availability. The participants had thirty minutes to finish the
vocabulary test of thirty items divided into three sections. Section I was a vocabulary assessment containing ten
items covering words of semantic sets. Section II contained ten questions from communicative sets. In these two
sections, there are twenty words randomly chosen from ChefVille’s daily questions. Section III included ten
questions eliciting from situational sets.
Next, information collected from the questionnaire was used to answer the second research question, “What is
students’ participation scale for the framework in an RPG game, ChefVille, to facilitate ESP vocabulary learning?”
The questionnaire comprising twenty items classified the features of students’ participation into the following four
scales: personal interest, external expectations, social contact and social stimulation. In addition, the proportions of
the selected options of each question were calculated and used as the basis for analyzing and reporting the students’
participation scale for the Facebook online game ChefVille in assisting ESP vocabulary acquisition.

Results and discussion
Situational sets effect
The participants of this study were eighty students from two classes of an urban vocational high school in Taiwan.
Table 1 provides correlations between the two paired scores of the pre-test and post-test. The correlation (r = .77)
between the pre-test and post-test indicates that learners who scored high on the pre-test were very likely to score
high on the post-test, and learners who scored low were very likely to score poorly on the post-test. More
specifically, it means that the vocabulary test has reliability, which systematically measures primarily the same thing
both times it is taken.

Pre-test & Post-test

Outcome
Vocabulary Test

Table 1. Paired-sample correlations
N
Correlation
30
0.77
Table 2. Score results of vocabulary test
RPG_ESP framework
N
M
With
40
78.33
Without
40
70.23

Sig.
0.000

SD
12.47
14.17

p
.01*

Note. *p < .05.
Table 3. Score results of vocabulary test using analytic scale
Outcome
RPG_ESP framework

N
M
Vocabulary assessment for semantic
With
40
21.03
sets (up to 30%)
Without
40
20.40
Vocabulary assessment for
With
40
23.40
communicative sets (up to 30%)
Without
40
22.13
Vocabulary assessment for situational With
40
33.90
sets (up to 40%)
Without
40
27.70
Note. *p < .05

SD
7.33
7.60

6.70
7.05
6.34
10.22

p
.71
.41
.00*

Before this study, these two groups did not show statistical difference in their English academic achievement (p
> .05). As shown in Table 2, the results indicated that the participants in the group of ESP vocabulary acquisition
with the RPG_ESP framework outperformed those ESP vocabulary without the RPG_ESP framework in ESP
vocabulary test (p < .05). Noteworthy, as shown in Table 3, statistically significant difference was found in Part III:
Vocabulary assessment for situational sets but not for the other two parts, namely Part I: Vocabulary assessment for
semantic sets and Part II: Vocabulary assessment for communicative sets across the two learning conditions between

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the experimental group: ESP vocabulary acquisition with the RPG_ESP framework, and the control group: ESP
vocabulary without the RPG_ESP framework (p < .05).

Participation scale effect
To validate the questionnaire and clarify its structure, an exploratory factor analysis with a varimax rotation was
performed. Items with a factor loading of less than 0.50 and with many cross-loadings were excluded from the
instrument (Costello & Osborne, 2005). Through the factor analysis, the final version of the survey consisted of
twenty items, which were retained in four scales. Furthermore, the reliability coefficients for the scales respectively
were 0.80 (personal interest, five items), 0.80 (external expectations, five items), 0.90 (social contact, five items) and
0.90 (social stimulation, five items), respectively, and the overall alpha was 0.96, suggesting that they had high

reliability in assessing the high school students’ participation in the Facebook online game ChefVille.
Table 4 shows students’ means and standard deviations of responses to each scale assessed by the survey developed
in this study. As shown in Table 4, the students scored highest for both two groups on the social contact scale (M =
4.58 and 3.95 on a five-point scale, respectively), followed by the social stimulation scale (M = 3.70 and M = 3.90,
respectively), the personal interest scale (M = 2.73 and M = 2.93, respectively), and the external expectations scale
(M = 2.98 and M = 2.03, respectively). The students scored highest on the scales of social contact and social
stimulation, suggesting that the students’ social interaction experience may facilitate their participation scale for the
RPG game ChefVille.
In addition, listed in Table 4, significant differences were found on external expectations and social contact scales
between the two groups. The reasons could be that in the ChefVille game, the participants with RPG_ESP
framework availability might have the same interest and more interactions. More specifically, they played the game
in a well-designed framework, and had the common goal guided by the framework which made the participants
interact and follow up with their peers in a more convenient way.
Table 4. Participation scale for RPG_ESP vocabulary-acquisition survey
Factor
RPG_ESP Framework
N
M
Factor 1: Personal interest
With
40
2.73
Without
40
2.93
Factor 2: External expectations
With
40
2.98
Without

40
2.03
Factor 3: Social contact
With
40
4.58
Without
40
3.95
Factor 4: Social stimulation
With
40
3.70
Without
40
3.90
Note. *p < .05.

SD
1.38
1.23
1.31
0.86
0.64
1.15
1.31
1.24

p
.50

.00*
.00*
.48

According to Bandura (1986), students with successful learning experiences are the most influential source in the
development of learners’ beliefs. Students are likely to imitate the behavior of those they believe are competent.
Also, the findings derived from recent research have suggested that exposure to competent students with successful
experiences ensures success in building positive students’ beliefs about learning (Siwatu, 2007). The framework
seems to suggest a possible way for promoting students’ willingness to share their experiences regarding ESP
vocabulary acquisition as well as motivate them to participate in an RPG-enhanced learning environment.

Conclusion and future research
This study investigated the effectiveness of ESP vocabulary acquisition using the RPG_ESP framework and the
students’ participation scale for the framework in an RPG game, ChefVille, to facilitate ESP vocabulary learning. In
accordance with the results and discussion, several major conclusions are made. First of all, the results indicated that
the RPG_ESP framework was beneficial to students’ ESP vocabulary acquisition only with respect to the
contextualized use of words. A possible explanation for the result was that RPG_ESP framework could efficiently
situate learning in an authentic context and lead learners to learn via the meaningful cognitive process. Lewis (1993)
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asserted that the authentic context makes language useful at once to learners because they can apply diverse and
pragmatic language in daily life. Additionally, the reason why they had better ESP vocabulary acquisition was
because the RPG_ESP framework presents vocabulary in a systematic way that is beneficial for learning. In terms of
the participation scale, the students scored highest on the scale of social contact followed by social stimulation,
indicating that the sociocultural approaches linking to students’ daily life experiences as well as improving their
social interaction with peers might be able to foster the students’ participation scale for the framework in the RPG
game ChefVille to facilitate ESP vocabulary learning. In addition, the two scales of personal interest and external
expectations have to do with students’ past successful experiences or positive authentic accomplishments, which
could increase their participation scale in an RPG game.

The findings of this study offered three important implications for future research. First, the results indicated that the
RPG_ESP framework facilitated students’ ESP vocabulary acquisition. This finding may provide implication for
teachers or educators when the RPG_ESP framework availability was added for EFL students in terms of selfefficacy and learner autonomy. This is done with the hope that it may provide an alternative solution to the problem
of limited ESP vocabulary learning and teaching. This study would enable educators and learners to realize and
consent to the view that the RPG_ESP framework could contribute to ESP vocabulary acquisition.
Additionally, it was found that RPG_ESP vocabulary acquisition linking to students’ daily life experiences might be
the key component of their participation. Alemi (2010) proposed the role of using games in expanding the learner’s
vocabulary as well as motivation. It is important because we can better know about learners’ perspectives to achieve
learners’ actual needs. Also, based on learners’ points of view, it can assist educators in adopting a suitable education
model to fit individual differences and refine pedagogical approaches as well.
Finally, this study proposed an RPG_ESP framework containing three levels: as semantic sets, communicative sets
and situational sets. Such a framework was expected to supplement students with recognition and comprehension of
ESP vocabulary and motivated them to participate in RPG-enhanced learning environment. In order to construct
authentic contexts and language used in the workplace, the RPG_ESP framework could help ESP teachers design
teaching materials and evaluation tasks to familiarize students with the real-life workplace, which exactly meets
learners’ needs. In sum, the findings of this study provided valuable empirical evidence for classroom teachers to
enhance the effectiveness of ESP vocabulary teaching and learning.
Some of the limitations of this study could serve as future directions for conducting related studies. First of all, the
newly developed participation scale for RPG_ESP Vocabulary-Acquisition Survey should be validated with a larger
sample across different grade levels and with a more rigorous method such as confirmatory factor analysis.
Moreover, as previously mentioned, researchers can adopt qualitative or mixed methodologies to explore students’
participation scale for the framework in the RPG game ChefVille to facilitate ESP vocabulary learning from different
perspectives and identify additional scales. Third, the structure type of the vocabulary test was all in a multiplechoice format. Wittgenstein (1969) claimed that the meaning of a word is its use, and words are how you use them.
Wittgenstein’s view of language as social practice is instructive for anyone who seeks to communicate clearly and
effectively. However, the test scope was narrowed down to gain more hospitality-related vocabulary only, which
might be problematic in revealing students’ pragmatic language production in real life.

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