Jhonni Rochelle Charisse Carr, PhD
Conintuing Lecturer of Spanish Linguistics
Department of Spanish & Portuguese, UC Berkeley
Kahoot!s on the linguistic landscape
Brief description
After teaching about code preferences in the linguistic landscape and the preferred code (dominant language) and marginalized code (non-dominant language), one way that instructors can check for understanding is by administering a quiz in class. The platform Kahoot! gamifies this sort of knowledge check by including scores and music.
See the Kahoot! I made here which you can play directly or, if you would like to edit it, make a copy of it to your own account. All images come from Southeast Los Angeles and formed part of the quantitative corpus of my dissertation (Carr, 2017).
More info about Kahoot!
Kahoots! are easy, fun, and students do not need to create an account to play.
Whereas students go to kahoot.it to play the game, instructors go to
create.kahoot.it to administer or edit the game and see results.
Assessment
Instructors can choose if they wish to assign a grade to students for playing the Kahoot! In the event they do assign a grade, I recommend a grade of completion as opposed to one of precision since, although the majority of students find the competition fun, others feel pressured and anxious and will not necessarily perform to the best of their abilities.
After playing the Kahoot!, instructors simply click “View results” to see a list of players, scores, and rankings. This information can also be downloaded as an Excel spreadsheet. If students are receiving a grade for the assignment, instructors may find it useful to advise students ahead of time to use their real names (as opposed to nicknames) and/or to first enter their last names, as results can be alphabetized, but only by first name.
Other ideas
While it is generally the most fun to play Kahoots! in the classroom, instructors also have the option to assign Kahoots! for students to do at home. This can be useful if a student is absent or if other students want to practice playing the Kahoot! again. After clicking on the finished Kahoot!, simply click “Assign” to send the Kahoot! for homework. Then you will assign a deadline and have the option to include the question timer and randomize the order of answers. Finally, you will be able to invite students via URL, QR code, or the Kahoot! platform itself.
Students can also create their own Kahoots! After noticing that Q&As weren’t too lively after group presentations, I tasked each group with creating a Kahoot! with a minimum of 10 multiple choice questions. Once groups finished their Kahoot!, they shared it with me, and I administered it to the class. Students found that playing a Kahoot! was a lot more interesting than a Q&A or regular quiz and were more likely to pay attention to the presentation be able to respond to questions.