This presentation aims to illustrate how effectively games and other ludic strategies were implemented and to what extent they fostered active learning and agency in an online graduate foreign language teacher training course, focusing on teaching Italian as a second language, offered at an Italian university. Since gamification is likely to increase learners’ motivation and autonomy (Jones, Blanton, and Williams 2022), pre-service language teachers engaged in various types of games, such as escape rooms and digital-based role plays, and ludic activities throughout their learning process. To foster equity, access, and inclusion in education, pre-service teachers experienced gamification (Zimmerman 2013) and game-based learning (Nesti 2017) fostered through the use of digital open educational resources (Rapanta et al. 2020; Van Allen and Katz 2020). The pre-service teachers also designed and implemented technology-enhanced ludic activities for university second language students studying abroad. Data for the study were collected through semi-structured questionnaires. Findings show that pre-service teachers (n=20) highly valued games and ludic activities enabling them to learn while having fun, which was a new experience for them. In particular, pre-service teachers highlighted engagement, motivation, and active learning as affordances of the learning experience. The findings from the study will be useful to instructors planning to design online, blended, and Hyflex language teacher training fostering gaming literacy.

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