Guessing Games and Speaking Skills

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate how the use of Guessing Games contributes to the development of English-speaking skills among 46 first-semester students from the PINE major at Universidad Técnica de Ambato in the Conversational English subject. Given that the study involved a single control group, a pre-experimental design with a quantitative approach was employed. The Key English Test (KET) speaking section from Cambridge Assessment was administered as both the pre-test and a post-test to measure students’ progress across the three criteria: Grammar and Vocabulary, Pronunciation, and Interactive Communication. Throughout eight interventions, several guessing games such as Slowly reveal a picture, Who am I?, Mime and guess, Other people’s shoes, What are they/you doing?, Where am I?, etc., and their variations were implemented through communicative and interactive speaking activities designed to promote oral production. Subsequently, data were analyzed using SPSS Statistics, revealing an overall increase of 1.30 points in speaking performance between the pre-test and post-test. These findings confirmed the positive impact of integrating guessing games on students’ speaking skills. Moreover, the results demonstrated that students enhanced their confidence, participation, accuracy, and fluency when using English in authentic communicative contexts. Therefore, guessing games proved to be an effective pedagogical tool for fostering active participation and developing key speaking subskills.