1 Introduction

Grammar-Related Autonomous Supportive Practice (GRASP) is an English grammar game that involves questions pertaining to “nouns,” “pronouns,” “adjectives,” “adverbs,” “verbs,” “tenses,” “prepositions,” and “conjunctions.” GRASP is an acronym created with the intention to carry the same meaning represented by the English word “grasp,” and as its name suggests, GRASP is intended to help students understand English grammar in an easier way by learning it through a board game which consists of cards containing English grammar questions for players to take turns in answering them. Learning English grammar involves learning many rules for using the language grammatically, which requires a user’s good understanding of the rules. Therefore, GRASP is expected to be a learning tool that is able to make learners understand English grammar more effectively for accurate use of the language.

1.1 Problem Statement

Historically, the traditional method of using the blackboard and posters in teaching or explaining grammar had made learning grammar tough and complex for students (Luu and Nguyen 2010). Caroll (2011) claims that in many higher education institutions, the educators believe that lessons should be conducted intellectually, in a serious way without involving the idea of having fun or playing games. As there are always disputes over which language-learning method is more effective than the other, this study thus aims to discover the English language learners’ perception of the ability of an innovated grammar board game called GRASP to function as an enjoyable and effective tool for improving learners’ grammar understanding.

1.2 Objectives of the Study

The present study has two objectives that it attempts to accomplish:

  1. 1.

    To explore UiTM students’ perception of GRASP as an enjoyable grammar learning tool

  2. 2.

    To investigate UiTM students’ perception of GRASP as an effective grammar learning tool for strengthening grammar comprehension

1.3 Research Questions of the Study

The research questions of this study were designed based on the objectives the study intends to achieve, and the questions are as follows:

  1. 1.

    What is UiTM students’ perception of GRASP as an enjoyable grammar learning tool?

  2. 2.

    What is UiTM students’ perception of GRASP as an effective grammar learning tool for strengthening grammar comprehension?

1.4 Significance of the Study

The present study hopes to be an important source of extended knowledge about grammar learning, particularly with regard to learning grammar through board games. Specifically, the findings about the GRASP grammar board game can perhaps contribute to more insights about the effectiveness of using board games as compared to other techniques in learning English grammar.

2 Literature Review

2.1 English Grammar

According to Luu and Nguyen (2010), grammar is a complex set of rules which is worth all the time and effort of the learners studying it. Larsen-Freeman (2014) claims that “Grammar is about the form of the language, but it is also used to make meaning” (p. 256). On the other hand, Swan (2005) defines “grammar” as “a set of devices (word order, inflection, use of function words, intonation contours) needed especially to express certain kinds of necessary meaning that cannot be conveyed by referential vocabulary alone: in particular, relationships between concepts, participant roles and mood. These devices are also widely used to encode other relatively abstract meanings such as time relationships, number or evidentiality” (p. 120). Edwardes (2010) describes grammar from cognitive and auditory perspectives as he mentions, “Grammar provides a schematic which allows objects not just to be named but to be mapped into a cognitive landscape of interrelationships; and it allows these mappings to be shared between minds by converting that landscape into one-dimensional stream of sound” (p. 9).

2.2 Learning Language Through Games

Lucas (2017) argues that there is no better learning technique than games as games have been innately associated with humans since their birth. Wright et al. (2005) justify why games are encouraged to be used in language learning due to the fact that learning a language involves a lot of work, and that effort should be made frequently and maintained over time, and thus by using games in the learning process, learners’ interest and hard work can be maintained. Despite this claim, they also warn that the competitive aspect of a game can be encouraging and at the same time discouraging in the sense that a player who loses the game will feel anxious about being viewed as “not good” compared to the winner, who categorizes himself as “very good.” Wright et al. (2005) are mostly positive about using games in language learning as they argue that games can help learners experience the language rather than merely studying it like the conventional drill exercises.

2.3 The Enjoyable Aspect of Language Games

Hadfield (1999) defines a game as an activity that is accompanied by rules, an objective, as well as a fun element, and this scholar also proposes that a game should be considered an important component of the language syllabus. Amusing, interesting, and challenging games keep the players motivated as they maximize the use of their brain (Luu and Nguyen 2010). Caroll (2011) claims that Generation G (for gaming) and those after them believe that games can add fun to the boring existing formal education system. Luu and Nguyen (2010) claim that apart from enabling learning to occur more effectively, games can also offer a fun atmosphere in the classroom. However, Caroll (2011) seriously warns that games are not a stand-alone teaching method in the classroom no matter how interesting it may be, as it should complement the existing teaching instruction. Richard-Amato (1996) also cautions that the pedagogical aspect of games should not be ignored despite their fun features, especially in teaching and learning a foreign language.

3 Methodology

3.1 Research Design

A descriptive and quantitative research design using a questionnaire survey was employed in this study. In addition, there was no hypothesis postulated and tested.

3.2 Participants

The study involved 114 students of diploma programs at UiTM Pulau Pinang. There were 64 male and 50 female students between 19 and 20 years old who participated in the study. The students were those who were taking English courses at the university during the implementation of the present study.

3.3 Instrument

The instrument used in the study was a questionnaire administered to each of the respondents. The questionnaire consisted of 20 self-reporting statements. Each statement was measured using a 5-point Likert scale where a numerical value was assigned to each level of agreement or disagreement or uncertainty: strongly disagree, 1; disagree, 2; undecided, 3; agree, 4; and strongly agree, 5.

3.4 Data Collection

The participants were divided into groups of four members each and then were given GRASP to play. Each group managed to finish playing the game within 1–2 h. After they were finished, they were given a questionnaire about GRASP to complete.

3.4.1 The Procedure and Rules of Playing GRASP

To play GRASP, first, in round 1, a die is rolled starting with Players A, B, C, and D to see the number and color each player will get. If the die shows number 3 (say number 3 is of orange color) for Player A, then the leader (who was decided prior to playing the game) will pick a question card from the orange box. The orange color means that Player A will need to answer a question about conjunctions. Every color represents either a certain grammar component or a reward/punishment (e.g., yellow for nouns and pronouns or white to mean a player has to move two steps forward from his current position). If Player A is able to answer the question on the card correctly, he can roll the die in the next round. If he fails to answer the question correctly, he will need to be penalized where he will lose one opportunity to roll the die in the next round (round 2) and has to wait for another round (round 3) to roll the die again. This will slow down his “journey” to get to the Finish box, and indirectly this will encourage the players to try to answer the questions correctly for they need to reach the Finish box first in order to be the winner. As an award to the winner, he will be given the authority to roll the die for all the remaining competing players for one round only. This is illustrated in Fig. 1a, b.

Fig. 1
figure 1

(a) The students playing GRASP; (b) GRASP board and question cards

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3.5 Data Analysis

The data collected from the questionnaires administered to the participants were entered into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. The quantitative data of this study were later analyzed. There was no test-retest in this study as the data were collected in one stage only for the main study.

4 Findings and Analyses

4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability Coefficient for the Instrument

A pilot study involving 30 respondents was performed to identify whether the items in the questionnaire used were reliable. The Cronbach’s alpha value obtained was 0.905 for items related to Research Question 1 (items 1–8) in Table 1 and 0.910 for items associated with Research Question 2 (items 9–20) in Table 2; these values indicated that acceptable values that showed the items in the questionnaire were reliable, as well as reasonable to be utilized for the present research.

Table 1 Reliability statistics for items 1–8
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Table 2 Reliability statistics for items 9–20
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4.2 Descriptive Statistics of the Data on the Respondents’ Perception Toward GRASP as an Enjoyable Grammar Learning Tool and as an Effective Grammar Learning Tool for Strengthening Grammar Comprehension

The data on the respondents’ perception of GRASP as an enjoyable grammar learning tool and as an effective grammar learning tool for strengthening grammar comprehension are illustrated in Table 3. Apart from answering the research questions, this study also assessed the normality of the data. Therefore, two normality tests were conducted, namely, skewness and kurtosis. The rule of thumb for skewness and kurtosis is that the value should be within ±2 (Burns and Burns 2008). The study found that there was no issue with skewness since all items were of the recommended value.

Table 3 Descriptive statistics of the data
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In terms of answering Research Question 1 (What is UiTM students’ perception of GRASP as an enjoyable grammar learning tool?), it was discovered that most of the respondents revealed that they were interested in using GRASP as a tool to learn English grammar (item 1: M = 4.29, SD = 0.606). With respect to GRASP as a learning aid that provides an enjoyable learning experience, the majority of the participants admitted that they enjoyed learning grammar through the use of GRASP (item 2: M = 4.40, SD = 0.606). Moreover, GRASP was perceived to have certain elements that made it enjoyable and fun to play as the majority of the respondents agreed that GRASP was fun because of its competitive aspect (item 3: M = 4.39, SD = 0.619) and was not boring to play (item 6: M = 4.40, SD = 0.544), and it made understanding grammar easier (item 8: M = 4.28, SD = 0.659).

In terms of the role of GRASP in strengthening grammar comprehension, most of the respondents revealed that they favored GRASP because of its ability to improve grammar comprehension (item 9: M = 4.28, SD = 0.631). The majority of the respondents were convinced with GRASP’s potential to help them with understanding grammar (item 10: M = 4.37, SD = 0.584). There were some features of GRASP that the majority of the participants claimed could contribute to the improvement of their grammar comprehension, such as the grammar discussions (item 11: M = 4.23, SD = 0.580), the questions and answers on grammatical rules (item 12: M = 4.37, SD = 0.584), the grammar rules selected for the game (item 14: M = 4.32, SD = 0.572), and the types of questions asked in the game (item 18: M = 4.18, SD = 0.541). Also, the respondents (M = 4.34, SD = 0.529) mostly agreed that apart from struggling to be a winner when playing GRASP, they could also strengthen their grammar understanding (item 17).

5 Discussion and Conclusion

It can be concluded that most of the respondents had positive views toward GRASP as a grammar learning tool that was able to attract their interest to utilize it to learn grammar, offer some enjoyment while teaching grammatical rules, and strengthen the participants’ comprehension of English grammar. Such perceptions toward GRASP clearly indicate that GRASP is believed to have the potential to be an effective grammar learning aid that can make learning experience more meaningful. The participants of the present study also seemed to suggest that other learners would be able to benefit from playing GRASP too as they said they would recommend their friends to try using GRASP for improving their grammar comprehension. Since the participants themselves had experienced playing GRASP, their confidence in this game and their recommendation for using it for grammar learning are evidently valid and reasonable. Goodwin (2014) asserts that “Games provide a sense of fun and competitiveness in the classroom” (p. 147). Since learning a language through games is considered more enjoyable for learners, the fun elements of GRASP that make the game enjoyable to play are simply justifiable.

Stelovsky (2001) ironically claims that “A good game is stressful: the player, for instance, may ‘die’ if the tasks are not achieved within a time limit. Interestingly, some very popular games do not have a ‘happy end,’ and the game always ends with the player’s ‘death’” (p. 1). However, GRASP does not have the same “die” issue as all players can eventually successfully reach the finish line at their own pace. As indicated by the majority of the respondents, this game was perceived to have been able to attract their interest in the game through its enjoyable and easy features (sense of suspense, competitiveness, and easy-to-use nature), thus providing the possibility for them to learn use of more grammatical language expressions, after frequently playing it. According to Larsen-Freeman (2014), skilled users of grammar will be able to express themselves accurately and meaningfully. Thus, English learners should strengthen their grammar knowledge through engaging in grammar learning activities, such as the use of fun games, for the purpose of transforming themselves into competent English language users. For this reason, GRASP should be introduced to more tertiary students at other universities, besides expanding it to schools, and it should also be promoted as an autonomous learning aid among educators and learners.