Students’ Satisfaction in Learning Mandarin Language Using Language Board Game

摘要

Learning Mandarin as a foreign language is not a breeze for students who have different mother tongues other than the target language. The prospect that they have no basic knowledge and everything is new to them makes the task of learning to be rather overwhelming. The psychologicaldilemmas that these learners experience on language learning have resulted in them to be quiet, for fear of losing their self-esteem in front of their peers. One way to foster active class participation and overcome the language learning hurdles is by using a language based game as an educationaltool. Thus, the language board game ‘Fun with Mandarin’ (FWM) is designed and utilized as an interactive learning tool to motivate learners in their own learning process through constant interaction in Mandarin. This study aims to review the students’ satisfaction in learningMandarin using language board game. The sample consisted of 44 diploma students who are undertaking the basic Mandarin course. The data were collected by means of a questionnaire after the use of FWM board game. The survey data is quantitative in nature, presented and analyzed through descriptivestatistics. The findings show that the vast majority of the respondents were very satisfied with FWM language board game; convinced that it managed to assist them into communicating in Mandarin effectively and has proven to be fun.