So, what has changed? For starters, the learners have changed, and so have we. Digital technologies have spread out vertically and horizontally in all fields of knowledge and fundamentally altered the nature of communication.

Thanks to the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) wave, gamification has been widely accepted and applied in schools and universities. The introduction of game-based elements into non-game scenarios, such as classrooms, has helped teachers to motivate learners and boost the engagement of students in real-time during classes (Skøien, 2018).

Figure 1

One popular game-based learning platform – or game-based student response system (GSRS) – is Kahoot!. Kahoot! went from being a research project back in 2006 to being used in classrooms in over 180 countries. According to its developer (Wang, 2015, p.218), like other games, it has the potential to increase the academic achievement, motivation and classroom dynamics among K-12 and tertiary students.

Nevertheless, Kahoot! has not been widely used in second language (L2) learning contexts. Where it is used, the main targets are still motivation and classroom dynamics. To gain a better understanding of the potential of Kahoot! in L2 teaching, I conducted a social semiotic, multimodal analysis, using tools from Systemics Functional Linguistics (Djonov, Knox and Zhao, 2015).

From the point of view of its design, Kahoot! provides L2 students with limited learning opportunities regarding reading and writing skills.

The analysis of the website structure (Figure 1) suggests that there is a dominance of vertical relations in the platform. This means that the website provides the first user (teacher) some freedom to choose among four options (quiz, survey, discussion and jumble), but this freedom in navigation is not transferred to the second users (students). Once a kahoot quiz starts (Kahoot!’s games are called ‘kahoots’), learners have to complete it and do not have the chance to go back and examine their answers before submitting them. It is a game; and you either make it to the first place or not.

In a more detailed examination of two webpages of a kahoot quiz, a question and its alternatives (see Figure 2), it can be seen that the overall layout of them shows a rather static design, which may reflect the institutional values of Kahoot!’s creator(s): the game is teacher-centred. In addition, there is interdependency among the webpages of a kahoot quiz (see green arrow), and even though it seems that their relations are horizontal, the above-mentioned lack of freedom of navigation signals its vertical design. Furthermore, the absence of a writing component when answering questions diminishes the possibilities smartphones can provide.

Figure 2

Kahoot! has proven to be an amazing motivation booster in many classrooms. However, its design favors the completion of the “game” over any reflection of the content and this, in an ESL/EFL context, plays against the opportunities L2 learners need, such as going at their own pace, reviewing their answers, and writing practice. In this context, as elsewhere, “it remains unclear whether Kahoot! leads to greater learning outcomes than traditional methods” (Licorish, Owen, Daniel, & George, 2018, p.5).

New teaching and learning technologies are exploding around us. It is our responsibility as teachers to choose the best among them, not based on their popularity but their effectiveness; modify the way we could possibly use them if needed; and keep in mind that technology is always subsidiary to learners and learning.

References

Djonov, E., Knox, J. S., & Zhao, S. (2015). Interpreting Websites in Educational Contexts: A Social-Semiotic, Multimodal Approach. In International Handbook of Interpretation in Educational Research (pp. 315-345). Springer, Dordrecht.
Licorish, S., Owen, A., Daniel, H., & George, E. (2018). Students’ perception of Kahoot!’s influence on teaching and learning. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 13(1), 1-23.
Skøien, J. (2018). User Engagement in Game-based Student Response Systems: A Case Study on Kahoot! Retrieved from https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/handle/11250/2562794
Wang, A. (2015). The wear out effect of a game-based student response system. Computers & Education, 82(C), 217-227.