Paper Title
Gamification in Learning English for Academic Purposes: Designing assessment for Learning using Kahoot with UAE Under Graduate Law Students
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to describe a reflection on integrating a web-based learning tool (Kahoot) for the purpose of real time formative assessment and share lessons learned by a university instructor teaching EAP to L2 learners in the undergraduate Law program at a UAE university. The participants in the study are 80 undergraduate Law program students enrolled in a customized Academic English course-ENG100 (A). The Law program is delivered in Arabic; hence, its undergraduate students are exempted from the university’s English Language proficiency requirements. However, these students face the challenge of taking this customized EAP course to complete the general education requirements. The study investigates the advantages and limitations of using Kahoot with this profile of students and examines how the effective strategies implemented improve summative assessment outcomes. Quantitative data were not collected on the effectiveness of the interventions applied. Data was collected by means of teacher and students’ reflection journals, focus group interviews, and semester course evaluation. Qualitative analysis of findings suggest that Kahoot- an online learning game fosters students’ intrinsic motivation. Moreover, findings reveal a marked increase in active learning, student engagement, self-efficacy, self-directed learning and improvement in summative assessment outcomes after integrating Kahoot.
Keywords - Kahoot, EAP, formative assessment, summative assessment