Journal of English Language Teaching

Using Sports Vocabulary to Strengthen English Language Skills of Engineering Students

Smitha Chandran

Ph.D. Scholar, NIT Rourkela, Rourkela, India

Seemita Mohanty

Professor, NIT Rourkela, Rourkela, India

Keywords: ESP, sports, sports vocabulary, classroom assignments, motivation

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Abstract

This paper reports on a small study that was taken up to examine whether using sports vocabulary in classroom assignments could influence and motivate undergraduate engineering students to take more interest in their English learning. Culturally Indians are observed to be very sports loving. One hundred and twelve 2^nd year electrical engineering students were considered for the study and were divided into two groups, group 1 comprising the experimental group, and group 2 comprising the control group. Specific language tasks based on sports were given to the experimental group to ascertain their level of interest. A pre and post-test method was applied, in addition to obtaining qualitative feedback from group 1 students. The results reveal that there was a marked improvement in the interest level and in the score level of the students who were subjected to the intervention process.

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