Keyword: «video games in english language learning»

There are many entertaining virtual technologies in the modern world, computer games being one of the realities without which the young generation cannot imagine their life in today's constantly evolving space. Computer games provide new opportunities for modifying the educational process in order to optimize and modernize it. For this purpose, it is necessary to look for new learning tools that will help to make the process of acquiring knowledge, skills and abilities more productive and significantly increase the motivation of students. Computer games can be used in this case, as they are able to display real situations to users and immerse a person in a virtual world, where it is necessary to solve a number of communicative and situational tasks. The study of this aspect today is extremely relevant, primarily because the history of computer games is not great. This topic is considered by many researchers, but the impact of computer games on different spheres of life, including learning, is not sufficiently studied and, for this reason, gives extensive opportunities for further research. The aim of the study is to prove through a practical experiment the assumption that computer games of non-educational nature can serve as a tool for independent work to improve the communication skills of students studying English in non-linguistic universities. This research used the following methods: theoretical – analysis and generalisation of scientific works and literature on the problem under consideration, pedagogical experiment, mathematical – statistical processing of the research results. The results of the experiment clearly show the effectiveness of using computer games as independent work for students. Listening skills improved by 6.2%, and reading ones by 8.7%. The experiment proved the results of introducing and using computer games in the educational process to be successful. The theoretical significance of the research lies in the detailed analysis of the concept “gamification”, its main classifications, as well as in the examination of computer games functions. Practical importance is represented by a number of methodological recommendations for the introduction of computer games as a tool for independent work into the educational process. The effectiveness of using this tool in learning English is proved by the results of the experiment.