EFL Students’ Perceived Impact of Using Role-playing Game on Their Reading Skill Development

This study explores EFL students perceived impact of Role-Playing Games (RPGs) on their reading skill development and challenges encountered when using RPGs for reading improvement. Employing a descriptive qualitative design, this study collected data through semi-structured interviews with ten active RPG players from the English Language Education Department at UIN Ar-Raniry Banda Aceh. The data were analyzed using the interactive model of Miles, Huberman, etd.(2014). The findings reveal that students perceived five positive impacts of RPGs on their reading skills: vocabulary acquisition through contextual and repeated exposure, enhanced reading comprehension through immersive narrative engagement, improved reading fluency and speed through time-pressured dialogue practice, increased reading motivation with spillover effects to non-game reading, and better information retention through emotional engagement and active participation. However, they also experienced challenges such as complex and archaic vocabulary, long and overwhelming texts, time-pressured reading causing anxiety, figurative language and idiomatic expressions, and limited transferability of RPG vocabulary to academic contexts. To overcome these challenges, students employed strategies such as using external resources, contextual guessing, and peer collaboration. In conclusion, RPG are perceived effective for improving students’ reading skill development, despite high challenges.