Abstract:

The scientific world of education has greatly benefited from the emergence and proliferation of various educational games and software, even more so under the current circumstances of online learning. However, since the number of games and apps can be sometimes overwhelming, if not forbidding, a careful selection must be conducted in order to efficiently utilize them according to the criteria every provider of educational content assesses as suitable for the individualized characteristics of their educational process receivers. This paper focuses on detailing the selection principles and usage contexts of such games and software in the case of English for Specific Purposes students with the main aim of maximizing their language and communication skills improvement in a differentiated manner. It is a study based on parameters such as game/app accessibility (device and design related), skill-related usefulness, motivation and engagement enhancement degree, as well as specific end-results in contextualized language acquisition. The educational tools taken into consideration are games, apps and platforms such as kahoot, quizlet, quizziz, edpuzzle, vocaroo, padlet, write&improve, storyjumper and socrative, each catering not only for a type of language skill development, but for sets of skills complementarily classified within various combinatorial categories and each leading to augmented values for the targeted ability/abilities.

Keywords:

Educational games and apps, selection principles, accessibility, usefulness, skills development.