Kahoot

Kahoot is a website that gives you access to various quizzes of different types. There are various ways for a group to respond: You can reorder lists or unscramble jumbled sentences in the Jumble mode, you can take multiple choice quizzes, you can take surveys, and join discussions. The multiple choice quizzes are most popular, going by sight, and the kids love it.

The great thing about Kahoot is that it is free (even though now they will bug you about setting up a ‘pro’ account; you can bypass their ad by simply clicking ‘Continue for free’) and that you create your own quizzes curtailed to the needs and abilities of your classes. The best thing about it is that if your school has laptops/computers for each student in a class, everyone can participate at the same time. However, if your school doesn’t have those resources, you can still get a lot out of Kahoot and get everyone to participate. Since my current school doesn’t have laptops for each kid, I set the classes up into two or four groups. They love the competition and go ape shit when they win. Normally there is some sort of ‘prize’ for winning, like being the first group to leave the class when the bell rings.

Another great thing about Kahoot is that your students can earn points. The point distribution depends on how quickly they answer the question, answering the question correctly, and correctly answering questions in succession creating a streak bonus. After each question, the correct answer or answers are displayed for review (And if for example the question was about the present simple and I’ve put answers with the present perfect or continuous, I ask which is which). Then, the leader board is displayed so the top three competitors know where they stand and the others see how far behind they are. While this may discourage some students, I remind them of the bonuses for answer streaks. I also remind them that I will see the grades for each and every one of them at the end, so if they purposely flunk, they’re in deep shit.

When taking a quiz, Kahoot gives you a game PIN that the test takers use to log in to the session. Each student enters the PIN on their personal device or on the school computer as well as a nickname for themselves. If a kid puts him or herself down as “Borja´s a doosh”, you can immediately kick them from the game (or wait until someone rats him out or figure out who it is by process of elimination). Once you see the number of players reach the current classroom size, you press start: The question will appear by itself for a few moments; followed by a screen with a picture you’ve selected, the question again, and from two to four answers (at least one of which has to be marked as correct).

Kids love playing Kahoot even if they can’t do so on a personal device. At my current school, we only have the teacher’s laptop and the projector screen. I have the kids raise their hands if they know the answer and try to pick the shy kids first if they decide to be brave. In some cases, they’ll be wrong and the other kids go ape shit letting them know, which of course is discouraging so you have to let them know it’s not okay to bash someone for being wrong. And of course, you have to remind the bullies that they make mistakes too. In my experience, and generally speaking, Spanish kids have no discipline (I out the Spanish because I don’t have experience with other countries’ kids’ behavior, though I imagine Americans are probably brats too by now). The kids that don’t get called will scream out the answer or be the ones to talk down to someone that answers incorrectly. I will have something planned like copying sentences from the board or a worksheet that I’ll hand out in the event that the class gets rowdy or someone gets real shitty.

You can find the Kahoots I’ve made at the following links, but of course you should make your own because you know your students’ levels and can adjust your quizzes to the material they’re working on.

You have to create an account (free) to create and play quizzes/puzzles.

English Travel, geography, and grammar quiz for 4th – 6th grade

5th to 6th level grammar quiz

Vocabulary quiz for 1st – 3rd graders

Super short quiz for 4th graders

On Spanish cities and capitals