I did not plan to enter many competitions this year.

It started with a problem in my writing classes

Academic report writing can be challenging for students. Sometimes, it is not the big writing tasks that cause the most difficulty. It is the smaller skills that students need to put everything together.

Things like academic tone, cohesive devices, hedging, sentence construction, citations and organisation can easily become overwhelming when students are asked to apply them in a full report.

I also noticed another challenge. With generative AI becoming increasingly accessible, it can be tempting for students to rely on generated text instead of actually working through the writing process themselves.

So I started thinking about how I could give my students more opportunities to practise these smaller writing skills in a way that felt less intimidating.

So I started playing around with ZEP Quiz

I have been using ZEP Quiz in different ways in my teaching, but for this particular project, I wanted to see whether I could use it to reinforce academic writing micro-skills.

Instead of giving students another set of static exercises, I created a gamified activity where they could practise skills such as hedging, cohesion, academic tone, sentence construction and citations through different types of questions.

The idea was quite simple.

Let them practise. Let them make mistakes. Let them try again.

The activity was designed in three stages. First, students received guided input during class. Then, they moved into the ZEP Quiz activity for asynchronous practice. Finally, they completed a reflection using ZEP Whiteboard after finishing the quiz.

And that third part became particularly important to me.

The game was not the end

One thing I have learned from using gamification is that the game itself should not be the learning objective.

I did not want my students to simply finish the quiz, look at their scores and leave.

I wanted to know what they thought about the experience too.

So, after the quiz, they reflected on how the digital environment affected their confidence and experience when working on the writing activities.

Some of their responses were particularly interesting. Students described the activities as feeling less like a test and more approachable than traditional paper exercises. Others mentioned the instant feedback and scoreboard as motivating them to think more carefully about their answers.

That was probably one of my favourite parts of the project.

The quiz showed me what they were doing.

The reflection gave me a glimpse into how they were experiencing the learning.

From classroom experiment to innovation project

I think this is one of the things I enjoy most about teaching.

Sometimes, we start with a small idea without knowing where it will lead.

I was not sitting there thinking, “Today, I am going to create an award-winning innovation.”

I was simply trying to solve a classroom problem.

I experimented with the activity, looked at how students responded and thought about how I could make the learning experience more meaningful.

Eventually, that classroom experiment developed into a teaching innovation project titled “Gamifying Academic Writing Micro-Skills through ZEP Quiz.”

And then I decided to submit it to ALNIC & IID Convention 2026, organised by UiTM Academy of Language Studies.

And then came the Silver 🥈

As I mentioned earlier, this was actually the only competition I joined in 2026.

So when I found out that the project received a Silver Award, I was genuinely happy.

Of course, getting an award is nice.

But what made it even more meaningful was having the support of my team member, Puan Linda a/p V.Prapagara. A big thank you to her for being such a great support in making this project a success!

It was not an idea created just for a competition.

It started with my students.

It started with a teaching problem.

And it grew from there.

What I took away from the experience

This experience reminded me that innovation does not always have to begin with something huge.

Sometimes, it starts with a teacher asking:

“What if I tried this differently?”

For me, ZEP Quiz was not about putting a game into a lesson just to make it more exciting.

It was about finding a different way for students to practise, participate and reflect.

And I think that is where technology becomes interesting in education.

The tool itself is only one part of the equation. What we do with it matters more.

I also learned that classroom experiments are worth documenting.

That little activity you tried because you were curious?

The one you tweaked three times?

The one that made you think, “Hmm, this actually worked”?

Write it down.

Reflect on it.

Maybe share it.

You never really know where it might lead.

For me, this year, it led to my one and only competition entry.

And apparently, a Silver. 😉

🥈 Not bad for a classroom experiment.