Incorporating games into learning a foreign language is an effective strategy that can lower students’ stress and improve their learning. Thus, this study tried to examine the impacts of Kahoot as a game-based learning tool on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary recall and retention. To this end, 50 Iranian intermediate learners were chosen for the participants of the study. After that, the participants were randomly assigned to two equal groups, one experimental and one control. Then, the participants’ English vocabulary knowledge was measured by administering a vocabulary pretest. After pretesting process, the participants in both groups received the treatment in two different ways. In the EG, the new vocabulary items were taught using the Kahoot game, while in the CG, the new ones were taught using traditional instruction. After finishing the treatment course, which lasted ten sessions, the two groups took the immediate vocabulary posttest. After three weeks, a delayed vocabulary posttest was administered to both groups to determine the effects of Kahoot on their vocabulary retention. The results of paired samples and independent samples t-tests depicted that there were significant differences between the immediate and delayed posttests of the EG and the CG in favor of the EG. The implications of this study can tell the teachers that teaching through game-based learning tools may produce better results than teaching through traditional methods. Also, the implications of this study can encourage students to practice and learn English even outside of the class context.

COVID-19 is spreading all over Iran, and Kerman is one of the most affected cities. We conducted this study to predict COVID-19-related deaths, hospitalization, and infected cases under different scenarios (scenarios A, B, and C) by 31 December 2021 in Kerman. We also aimed to assess the impact of new COVID-19 variants and vaccination on the total number of COVID-19 cases, deaths, and hospitalizations (scenarios D, E, and F) using the modified susceptible-exposed-infected-removed (SEIR) model. We calibrated the model using deaths reported from the start of the epidemic to August 30, 2021. A Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) uncertainty analysis was used to estimate 95% uncertainty intervals (UI). We also calculated the time-varying reproductive number ( R t ) following time-dependent methods. Under the worst-case scenario (scenario A; contact   rate = 10 , self ‐ isolation   rate = 30 % , and average vaccination shots per day = 5,000 ), the total number of infections by December 31, 2021, would be 1,625,000 (95% UI: 1,112,000–1,898,000) with 6,700 deaths (95% UI: 5,200–8,700). With the presence of alpha and delta variants without vaccine (scenario D), the total number of infected cases and the death toll were estimated to be 957,000 (95% UI: 208,000–1,463,000) and 4,500 (95% UI: 1,500–7,000), respectively. If 70% of the population were vaccinated when the alpha variant was dominant (scenario E), the total number of infected cases and deaths would be 608,000 (95% UI: 122,000–743,000) and 2,700 (95% UI: 700–4,000), respectively. The R t was ≥1 almost every day during the epidemic. Our results suggest that policymakers should concentrate on improving vaccination and interventions, such as reducing social contacts, stricter limitations for gathering, public education to promote social distancing, incensing case finding and contact tracing, effective isolation, and quarantine to prevent more COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in Kerman.

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