ABSTRACT:Combining games with mobile devices can promote learning opportunities at the learners' fingertips and enable ubiquitous learning experiences. As teachers increasingly assign games to reinforce language learning, it becomes essential to evaluate how effective these applications are in helping students learn the content or develop the skills that the games are reinforcing. This article examines two English language learning apps under the RETAIN model (GUNTER; KENNY; VICK, 2008). The findings indicate that although these apps offer some language learning opportunities, they do not present scenario-based quality or gameplay, among other elements, if they are to be considered games. KEYWORDS: Educational mobile games; English language learning applications; evaluation of educational games; RETAIN model. 210 RESUMO: A combinação de jogos e dispositivos móveis pode promover oportunidades de aprendizagem ao alcance dos aprendizes e permitir experiências de aprendizagem ubíquas. Uma vez que professores cada vez mais usam jogos para reforçar a aprendizagem de línguas, torna-se essencial avaliar o quão eficiente esses aplicativos são em ajudar os estudantes a aprender o conteúdo e desenvolver as habilidades que eles estão reforçando. Este estudo examina dois apps para a aprendizagem de língua inglesa utilizando o modelo RETAIN. Os resultados apontam que embora esses apps ofereçam algumas oportunidades de aprendizagem de línguas, eles não apresentam cenários ou gameplay entre outros elementos necessários para serem considerados jogos. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Jogos educacionais móveis; aplicativos para aprendizagem de línguas; avaliação de jogos educacionais; modelo RETAIN.

Most teachers are working from home and using digital tools to mediate their classes as a response to a demand for transitioning face-to-face to online classes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on the ecological approach, this paper reports a qualitative study that aims to understand how digital technologies are integrated in the teaching practices during the Emergency Remote Teaching. Seventy-six language teachers answered a quasi-structured questionnaire about their experiences. The findings show how the network created with their peers scaffolded this experience and played a crucial role in their appropriation of those technologies. Moreover, the findings suggest that this network may have contributed to the “normalisation” of digital technology use.

The publication of a special issue on Games and Gamification by Revista Brasileira de Linguística Aplicada (RBLA-The Brazilian Journal of Applied Linguistics) recognizes the role of games and gamification in the discussions on language and language learning/teaching. It not only invites researchers to report on their most recent findings in the area, but also legitimizes its relevance and value in furthering studies in Applied Linguistics in Brazil. Games and Gamification The relationship between play and learning is not new. Historically, play has been recognized as a mediator of learning processes, including all phases of early childhood education, simulators for training, among other things. In Homo Ludens-a seminal work published in 1938 on playfulness in its various forms in cultures of all places and across time, the Dutch cultural historian Johan Huizinga argues that the activity of playing, or a playful attitude, is an archetypal experience that extends beyond human 1 Associate Professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). The tenets of her research have been complexity theory, situated learning, communities of practice, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) as well as mobile learning and mobile applications. 2 Professor of Secondary and Technical Education, and of the School of Letters-Publishing Technologies at the Federal Center for Technological Education of Minas Gerais (CEFET-MG). Dr Racilan specializes in language teaching and learning experiences in interface with digital technologies, mobile devices, digital games, and ecological approaches.

Este estudo analisa as interações de 227 professores em um curso de ensino e aprendizagem de línguas no WhatsApp e tem como objetivo a) identificar o uso de emojis em funções sintáticas e discursivas em experiências educacionais via WhatsApp, b) compreender o papel dos emojis na evolução das comunidades de aprendizagem nesse aplicativo, e c) discutir o uso de emojis na mediação de experiências educacionais online. Os resultados mostram o uso de emojis com diversas funções sintáticas e discursivas destinadas a compensar a ausência de recursos não verbais típicos das interações face a face. Sugerem também que os emojis contribuíram significativamente para a construção da coesão do grupo, sentimento de pertencimento e manifestações identitárias nas interações ocorridas durante o curso, bem como a apropriação dos emojis como estratégia de mediação para destacar as postagens de educadores e tutores e para incitar as intervenções pedagógicas.

With the ever-growing interest in WhatsApp as a social space to accommodate pedagogical initiatives, the role of emojis as an emergent Internet language in this social space needs to be better understood as mobile technologies have been integrated in education. With that in mind, this paper reports a study that employed an embedded correlational mixed methods design, and aimed to identify: the emojis used to support cognitive, teaching, and social presences in a teacher education course via WhatsApp; participants’ attitudes regarding the use of emojis, and their age and gender relation to this use. The data generated from the interactions of the teachers via WhatsApp were analyzed and discussed based on Garrison et al.’s (1999) Community of Inquiry Model. This conceptual framework identifies crucial elements for successful online educational experiences and assumes learning occurs through the interaction of three core elements: social, cognitive and teaching presences. The findings show that emojis can effectively be used to support teaching, cognitive, and social presences. The high frequency of emojis seem to be both culturally situated and gender related.