Gamification nella classe di lingue

L’Italian Network invita docenti e appassionati di didattica delle lingue a un incontro dedicato alla gamification in classe.L’evento si aprirà con l’intervento di Salvatore Varriale, che esplorerà il valore pedagogico del gioco nell’apprendimento linguistico.Seguirà la testimonianza di Emma Cobb, ex studentessa di italiano, che presenterà un gioco di lingua italiana da lei ideato, offrendo uno sguardo fresco e creativo sull’apprendimento attraverso il gioco.

 

Quando? Lunedì 2 marzo. Ore 16.00

Dove? Online - zoom meeting link a seguire

 

Un’occasione per riflettere, ispirarsi e scoprire come il gioco possa trasformare l’esperienza di apprendimento dell’italiano.

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REPORT

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NILI Webinar on Gamification e didattica delle lingue/Gamification and language teaching, 02/03/2026

The webinar took place on 2 March 2026, and consisted of 2 contributions.

Salvatore Varriale, a PhD student in Digital Humanities at the University of Genoa and a lecturer in German Language and Translation (GERM-01/C) at the SSML – Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici in Lamezia Terme, presented “Students’ Emotional Responses and Perceptions in Game-Based Language Assessment: Exploring Digital Educational Escape Rooms”.

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The study reported on a Digital Educational Escape Room (DEER) designed with ThingLink and implemented as formative assessment in an online German A2/B1 course. Recent research in language education has highlighted the importance of affective and emotional dimensions in learning and assessment, with Game-Based Learning (GBL) and immersive environments shown to enhance engagement and motivation. Digital Educational Escape Rooms (DEERs), conceived as serious games, integrate narrative immersion, collaboration, and problem-solving within authentic, goal-oriented tasks. From a neuroscientific perspective, playful environments activate reward mechanisms that support motivation and memory consolidation, while also reducing anxiety through learners’ deep task involvement, or “rule of forgetting”. Grounded in constructivist and socio-constructivist frameworks, DEERs promote active knowledge construction, peer interaction, and negotiation of meaning, aligning with Self-Determination Theory by supporting autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Their challenge–solution–reward structure may further enhance self-efficacy and facilitate flow. Preliminary findings from the study presented indicate positive learner perceptions, increased engagement, and reduced assessment anxiety, suggesting that DEERs can complement traditional assessment while capturing linguistic, transversal, and affective dimensions of learning.

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In the second presentation, Emma Cobb from the University of Nottingham, who is a Modern Languages Graduate and a languages and board games enthusiast, took us through the restaurant themed Italian card game which she is currently designing.

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Emma has set up a start-up called Colloqwee Games, and has focused recently on Dialox, a Beginners’ Italian language learning card game. Here again the playful dimension is intended to activate the “rule of forgetting” to promote deep task involvement and motivation, and to reduce anxiety. The game is portable, allows for learning in context and can be played in class as well as for self-learning.  It consists of a pack of 24 restaurant cards, but there are plans to expand the topics (i.e. public transport, shopping, hotels, making friends) and the range of levels and languages on offer (Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Mandarin).

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A number of participants expressed an interest in implementing and trialling both Salvatore’s and Emma’s learning designs, which address key issues in both assessment and independent learning in current education debates.