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Background: Many gamification applications (apps) have been designed to motivate students to learn particular content. Based on the brain activation approach, the present study adapted an app, named Shaking-On, which requires students to shake their mobile devices to send their answers to multiple-choice questions to the teacher. Students then learn from their performance. Objectives: To understand how this approach can stimulate participants' emotions when achieving their learning goals, the present study compared Shaking-On to Kahoot! by checking participants' gameplay anxiety, learning interest, perceived learning value, and learning achievement while learning the Taiwanese language. Methods: The students were divided into two groups to play with one of the two apps, Shaking-On or Kahoot!, as part of a quasi-experimental study in which they used the assigned app six times in 6 weeks. Moreover, a questionnaire was distributed to participants and 151 useful responses from the Shaking-On group, and 148 from the Kahoot! group were returned. Results and Conclusions: After statistical analysis, the results of this study revealed that besides no difference in gameplay anxiety when comparing the two groups of students, there were significant differences in game interest, flow experience, perceived learning value, and learning achievement, further indicating that Shaking-On with hands-on shaking outperformed Kahoot!.