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Who is this webinar for?
Please note that the content of this webinar is tailored for teacher educators and teachers who are engaged in facilitating the professional development of others.
What is this webinar about?
This session looks at how teacher educators can work with teachers to make their classrooms more relevant to today’s world. Drawing from research where children aged 8–14 were positioned as researchers of their own gaming practices, Annamaria Pinter and Helen Sherwin highlight the benefits and challenges of drawing on gaming for educational purposes, such as improving language skills, teamwork, and problem-solving. Teacher educators will learn how to help teachers adapt classroom activities to reflect learners’ digital realities and integrate gaming strategies into pedagogy. The session also explores how involving children as researchers can enrich classroom practices, fostering collaboration and making lessons more engaging and aligned with real-world experiences. Practical gamification ideas are included.
When?
Tuesday 18 November 2025, 12.00 – 13.15 (UK time). Find out the time in your location.
About the speakers
Annamaria Pinter is a Professor at the Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK. She is the author of Teaching Young Language Learners Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers, Oxford University Press (second edition, 2017), Children Learning Second Languages, Palgrave Macmillan (2011), Engaging Children in Applied Linguistics Research, Cambridge University Press (Winner of the BAAL Book Prize, 2024) and she is currently joint series editor of Early Language Learning in School Contexts by Multilingual Matters. Email: Annamaria.pinter@warwick.ac.uk
Dr Helen Sherwin is an experienced teacher educator and researcher based in Hungary. Her work focuses on early English language learning, plurilingualism, pre- and in-service primary English teacher education, curriculum development, and the integration of technology in language teaching. She has co-authored several publications in these areas and has a long-standing involvement in European collaborations promoting innovation in higher education (e.g. the EU-funded RUN-EU network). Email: sherwinhelen@hotmail.com
Supporting material for this webinar
- Pre-webinar reading
Find out more about our webinar theme with our suggested pre-reading:
Language learning "in the wild": Children playing online games in English- Pre-webinar task
Engage with the webinar theme by completing our pre-webinar task.
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Bringing Today’s World into the Classroom
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