Applying AI-Powered Kahoot for Teaching Listening Skills at Senior High School

By: Sudiharto, Mahasiswa Magister Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris Universitas Negeri Semarang

RECENTLY, English teachers in various countries, including ours, have been urged, if not strongly directed, to incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) in class. Albeit the promising  nature of Artificial Intelligence, many teachers remain doubtful about what exactly it looks  like in class. Being a senior English teacher in high school and currently taking a master’s  degree in English Language Education, personally, I used to share those same doubts. The  turning point for me was when I deliberately employed Kahoot, an interactive learning application assisted by Artificial Intelligence, in teaching listening. 

Applying AI-Powered Kahoot for Teaching Listening Skills at Senior High School

Listening was one of the most difficult skills for my students to learn. Many of them had trouble understanding spoken English, particularly when it was delivered with authentic  accents, at a normal pace, and with vocabulary that was not taught in class. The passive nature of typical listening exercises, such as playing audio recordings for students to answer  questions, often caused students to lose enthusiasm. 

Additionally, based on observation of the classroom learning context, the primary issues 

observed in the class are the lack of motivation, classroom interactions, and feedback opportunities. Listening skills have been tested and not considered a learning activity. This scenario reinforces past research that shows the inability of the traditional listening class method in actively engaging the learner (Goh & Vandergrift, 2021). 

Why I Chose Kahoot as an AI-Assisted Tool 

While there are Kahoot is generally known as a game-based quiz tool. However, what drew my interest was its use of AI in functions like automatic questioning, immediate analytics, adaptive feedback, and tracking responses in real time. This is in comparison to the static worksheet that teachers can review immediately to understand students’ understanding. 

On the basis of pedagogical values discussed in the framework ICT and AI for Teaching Listening, Kahoot seems to serve as an appropriate interactive formative assessment tool. Even more importantly, Kahoot seems to be aligned with the TPACK framework. In TPACK, technology would not dominate pedagogy or content but would rather serve them. 

How I Have Integrated Kahoot into a Listening Lesson 

I utilized a Kahoot in a Grade XI class on listening to opinions in conversations. There are three steps to incorporate listening in class: pre-listening, while-listening, and post-listening.

Skills for teaching 

Pre-Listening: Schema and Vocabulary Activation 

I prepared a Kahoot quiz, prior to playing the audio, incorporating essential phrases used in opinion giving and receiving, including "I think.","In my opinion.","I agree/disagree because.". The AI-driven question suggestion tool in Kahoot helped me shape the distractor options, keeping in mind common errors made by students. 

The students logged in using their smartphones. The competitive aspect immediately altered the classroom dynamics. The classroom, which was previously filled with passive silence, was now abuzz with students actively discussing potential responses. 
Listening While-Listening: Checking Compreh During the listening stage, the students listened to an authentic dialogue. They responded to questions about what they heard, which were done using the Kahoot system. The system enabled me to set questions that allowed the students to answer using options, which were then marked automatically.