Kahoot! And Quizlet's Application Research In Chinese Teaching To American Middle School Students

Kahoot! and Quizlet are gamified learning platforms favored by American teachers and students.At present,many Chinese teachers have used these two learning platforms as a teaching aid,but there is little research on the topic,especially applied to teaching Chinese to American secondary school students.This article adopts action research method to explore the application of Kahoot!and Quizlet in Chinese teaching in American secondary schools.First,we surveyed American secondary school students and Chinese teachers using questionnaires and interviews to understand the basic use of Kahoot! and Quizlet for teaching Chinese in American secondary schools and analyzed the application effectiveness and existing problems.Then,we examine 13 American high school students in the HSSA Summer Program 2019 Chinese class who use Kahoot! and Quizlet in Chinese class,and ask the students to fill out a feedback survey to assess the effects,behavior tendency of students and students’expectations of using Kahoot!and Quizlet.Finally,we put forward suggestions for the application of Kahoot!and Quizlet in Chinese class.We hope that this research can provide a reference for Kahoot! and Quizlet to improve Chinese teaching and learning to American secondary school students,offer new teaching ideas for other international teachers teaching Chinese,bring a characteristic teaching case for Chinese teaching in international domain and enrich the international Chinese teaching research.It’s found in the study that Kahoot!and Quizlet can provide plenty of help and support for Chinese teaching and learning.It has great efficiency in improving the engagement of classroom activities,encouraging students’motivation,confidence and study effect,enhancing the reading ability by better to learn phonetics,vocabulary and grammar;Kahoot!and Quizlet are versatile tools:Kahoot!and Quizlet can be used in Chinese teaching at the same time and can be combined with differentiated teaching;Cooperative and independent learning through Kahoot!and Quizlet is more popular with students;There are some differences in students’learning strategies using Kahoot!and Quizlet to learn Chinese;The different functions of Kahoot!and Quizlet have different effects on Chinese learning;Teachers and students’ imbalanced application of various functions of Kahoot!and Quizlet;Students hope the application method can meet its learning level and learning needs.The main problems in Kahoot! and Quizlet applications are that some teachers do not know enough about Kahoot! and Quizlet,that teachers have many problems using Kahoot!and Quizlet,and that Kahoot!and Quizlet lack some Chinese functions.Based on the survey results and reflection on teaching practice,we propose the following suggestions for Kahoot!and Quizlet to apply to Chinese teaching and learning for American secondary school students:First,teachers need to reconsider pre-existing beliefs about teaching methods in light of Kahoot! and Quizlet’s ability to improve teaching effectiveness.Second,teachers should continuously improve their abilities in using the Kahoot!and Quizlet applications.Third,teachers should fully consider the use needs of learners,and determine the best method to combine Kahoot!and Quizlet in teaching Chinese,considering students’ learning habits and motivations.Fourth,teachers should adopt flexible application strategies to make up for the existing defects of these two learning platforms.