Resumen en inglés

This qualitative action research aimed, firstly, to examine whether or not the implementing game-based conversational activities enhance oral interaction in a group of 5th grade students from a public school of Montería taking into consideration the advantages of games to develop speaking skills. Secondly, to know students’ opinions regarding the deployment of games based conversational activities in the class. The data collection was done through the implementation of production tasks (game based conversational activities), active observation, audio-visual recordings, focus groups and semi-structured interviews; besides, it was carried out thematic analysis to generate the categories of this study. The results showed a slight increment on students’ oral interaction after the implementation of games, also, it was observed a positive impact on students’ engagement, reduction of negative feelings related to expressing ideas orally during the English class, while students also seemed to enhance their confidence to speak in English, as well as collaborate more with peers. Future studies of games-base activities should consider the adaptation of games frameworks taking into account students’ context and communicative approaches, strategies to minimize disruptive behavior, the relevance of non-verbal communication as complement during oral interaction as well as the impact of games to reduce the use of the L1 during L2 learning.