Abstract:
The present research aims at investigating the use of the ‘Kahoot’ online game as a
tool for teaching and learning prepositions for ESL learners at tertiary level. The
quantitative method was used to gather information. Also, 40 participants who study
first-year ‘English for Humanities’ course at the University of Kelaniya followed a
series of lessons on prepositions These participants were divided into two groups as
the controlled group and the experimental group, and each group consisted of 20
participants. After each lesson on prepositions, an assessment was conducted by using
‘Kahoot’ online platform for the experimental group, whereas the controlled group
was given paper-based assessments after each lesson. A pre-test was conducted in the
first week in order to evaluate the participants’ current knowledge on prepositions
and a post-test was conducted in the fourth week to investigate the effectiveness of
the usage of ‘Kahoot’ to acquire knowledge on prepositions. After this task, a
questionnaire was administered in order to examine the perceptions of students about
incorporating ’Kahoot’ to the learning process. After that, quantitative data was
analyzed using SPSS 25. The ‘Likert’ scale was used to analyze data in the
questionnaire, and a one way ANOVA test was run, followed by the Independence
Sample T- test, to observe whether there are significant differences in the
performance of those groups discussed above. The results showed that using ‘Kahoot’
online game was more effective than the traditional method of teaching prepositions
for the ESL learners of University of Kelaniya. Therefore, this study concludes that
students can be taught prepositions by using the ‘Kahoot’ online game as an
innovative teaching technique effectively in ESL contexts.
