A study on incorporating gamification into ESL classroom via Kahoot!.

Abstract

Digital natives can no longer be motivated through traditional language games. Therefore, challenges lying ahead of ESL teachers are to minimize absenteeism through enhancing intrinsic motivation of learners in Higher Education Institutes in Sri Lanka and to increase students’ attention. The findings of previous experiments showed that students who were subjected to learning through video games reported significant improvement in subject understanding, diligence, and motivation (Barata et al., 2013). Rather than assuming that the rapid proliferation of sophisticated technologies such as smartphones, tablets, and laptop computers is the cause of student attention deficit (Griffin, 2014), ESL teachers should accept this challenge positively to find new avenues to fulfill the expectations of 21st century learners. This study aims at analyzing students’ perceptions on Kahoot!, which is a game based Classroom Response System and observing the impact of Kahoot as a formative assessment system as against non -gamified paper quiz formative assessment system. Two Kahoot quizzes and two paper quizzes were designed to summarize a grammar and a vocabulary lesson. Two groups of 15 students in each were chosen as the sample. After the completion of each lesson, a Kahoot quiz on grammar and a paper quiz on vocabulary were administered to the group one and the group two was exposed to the Kahoot quiz on vocabulary and the paper quiz on grammar. After three weeks the same two Kahoots quizzes were administered in order to check memory retention of the learners in both groups. A questionnaire designed to analyze the perceptions of the learners was also distributed among the two groups after exposing the learners to a series of six Kahoots to summarize English lessons completed over a period of six weeks. The results highlight attendance, intrinsic motivation and concentration can be amplified through gamification via Kahoot! in ESL classrooms.