Este artículo da cuenta de un proceso de investigación-acción educativa, cuyo objetivo fue proponer una herramienta multimodal contextualizada teniendo en cuenta el Aprendizaje Basado en Tareas (TBL, por sus siglas en inglés), con el fin de contribuir al aprendizaje del inglés de un grupo de estudiantes de grado sexto en una institución educativa pública de Florencia, Caquetá. La herramienta se diseñó partiendo del análisis de la revisión documental, de encuestas y de un examen diagnóstico y, para su implementación, se utilizó el diario de campo y evidencia del trabajo de los estudiantes. Los resultados sugieren que el material contextualizado, la multimodalidad y el TBL promueven ambientes efectivos de aprendizaje en los que los estudiantes construyen conocimiento a partir de temas de su interés, de recursos como videos, juegos y plataformas digitales y, además, desarrollan de manera integrada las habilidades del idioma.

This paper investigates pre-service English teachers’ perceptions on their online teaching practice during pandemic times, focusing on issues related to technology, materials development and gamification. Accordingly, a qualitative narrative research approach was implemented to deeply inquiry pre-service English teachers through interviews and artifacts. It is concluded that even though pre-service English teachers had to face different concerns related to their online teaching practice, such as students’ lack of commitment, low motivation and connectivity issues because of the pandemic, still they were capable of understanding and reflecting upon their role as teachers and used technology and gamified activities to overcome their concerns.

Writing is a way to express and communicate ideas and thoughts. However, during class, students present different challenges and difficulties to convey their ideas using the vocabulary learnt in the English class. The current paper describes an action research process aimed at exploring the contributions that videos with sociocultural content have for the improvement of the writing skill in English among 10th graders at Institución Educativa Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Florencia-Caquetá, Colombia. This research was developed in four interventions in which surveys and researchers’ field notes were the instruments used to collect data. The findings of this research demonstrated the impact and benefits of the use of videos to improve students’ writing skill. Additionally, along with the interventions it was possible to evidence students’ motivation because they participated, corrected, and improved the written paragraphs together.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the use of manipulative speech tactics, which are actively used in journalistic texts to form a certain impact on the target audience. The article explores the tactics on the example of English and Spanish speech techniques. The purpose is to study the influence of manipulative tactics on journalistic discourse. The research methodology includes an analysis of newspaper and journalistic texts popular in the United Kingdom and Spain. The article explores the strategies of manipulative speech techniques in political discourse. In journalistic texts, speech techniques have a peculiarity in manifestation in the multilevel perception by the reader. For political discourse, a special role is to use metaphors. Tactics based on speech techniques, including visual and expressive means (metaphorical models), are in every language culture. Manipulation here will be considered as a means used for the implicit implementation at the mental level of specific goals, intentions, and attitudes that do not coincide with those that the target audience currently has. Communication in political discourse has the only goal: to influence the object of influence. Therefore, the basis for using manipulative speech techniques is to use a strategy of influence and control by public consciousness.

Game-based learning (GBL) places high demand on educational resources and has been widely practiced in classrooms in many developed countries; however, few studies on GBL and its influencing factors have been conducted in developing countries. To address this research gap, a mixed-methods study was conducted in a state high school in the Amazon region of Colombia with 64 tenth-graders who were learning English as a foreign language to identify the factors that affect learners’ learning outcomes when serious games are applied to vocabulary learning, with a specific focus on learning engagement. This study drew on both quantitative and qualitative data collected from surveys, interviews, and pre- and post-tests. The results showed that engagement and prior knowledge can positively predict GBL outcomes, while contextual factors and family condition had an adverse impact on GBL outcomes (Adjusted R2 = 0.635, p < 0.01). The results also indicated that a male student with a higher level of prior knowledge would be more likely to achieve good grades in GBL. Based on the study results, several implications are proposed for incorporating serious games for vocabulary learning in less-developed regions. This study results provide important practical implications for high schools in developing countries to implementing GBL.