<< Background >>The Commission’s article “About Multilingualism Policy” stresses the importance of linguistic diversity and language learning in the EU to foster unity, intercultural understanding, employability, and mobility. Member countries are thus encouraged to provide better language learning opportunities from an early age, following the Council Recommendation on a comprehensive approach to the teaching and learning of languages, aiming to modernize and improve language teaching methods.The Eurydice report on key data on teaching languages at school in Europe (2017) shows that foreign language courses are now starting in primary school or even earlier. It emphasizes that 90% of students in lower secondary school chose English and that two thirds of EU countries use the CEFR as a reference for language levels at school. For students learning two foreign languages, the level set at the end of upper secondary school ranges between B1 for the second language and B2 for the first language. According to the results of the European Survey on Language Competencies measuring foreign language student proficiency (2015), only 42% of tested students reached an independent level (B1-B2) in their first foreign language and this number went down to 25% in the second foreign language. In addition to be a European priority, foreign language assessment will also be part of the 2024 targets of the OECD PISA test.The low student proficiency might also be explained by a lack of adaptations for students with specific needs, such as those with ‘Dys’ disorders, also called Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs). The European Dyslexia Association (EDA) estimates that around 9-12% of the European population has one or several SLDs. It stresses that the multilingual demands of the EU are triggering difficulties for ‘Dys’ students and has acquired support of the EU parliament in its effort to change legislation, attitudes, and practices in education and in the workplace. The Belgian Association of parents and professionals for children with learning difficulties (APEDA) also stressed that ‘Dys’ students need more support in language acquisition and foreign language learning than those with no special needs, as a new language comes with new sounds, letters, words, spelling, and grammar. It also emphasizes that English is one of the most complicated languages to learn, as it uses 40 different phonemes spelled in 1120 different ways. They compare it to French, which uses 36 phonemes spelled in 170 different ways. ESL is therefore one of the courses for which ‘Dys’ pupils will need more support and motivation.<< Objectives >>Our project aims to support teachers in adopting innovative tools and practices to create and use video games in their language courses to raise the motivation, engagement and participation of all their students, including those with SLDs. The focus of the project will be on ESL, since 90% of pupils choose it and as it causes more challenges for ‘Dys’ pupils. Associations for the Dys all around the world advise to use gamification such as quizzes and games and encourage the practice of language skills through informal channels (e.g. movies, series, music, and travels). However, gamification has proved to be efficient for all learners in several studies such as “Motivation, Engagement and Learning through Digital Games” by I. Iacovides et al. (2011). Our project focuses on gamification by exploring the creation of downloadable video games through different tools such as Genial.ly, RPGmakerV, Flowlab, or PowerPoint. These games will help raise the student’s motivation through non-formal and experiential learning and will be built around specific objectives to guide them towards improvement. The existing language learning games are often not adapted for students with SLDs. The inclusiveness of the games developed in this project will therefore be innovative and foster greater participation and success rates for those learners as well.<< Implementation >>The project will produce several results leading to three testing phases organised in partner countries. The expert partners will first start with the production of 6 pilot video games for ESL, adapted to the needs of learners with SLDs. These games will be tested by the partners and modified according to the received feedback. The requirements will be updated in order to prepare the production of the second batch of games.The second batch will consist of another 30 video games for ESL which will be developed by all partners, including school, based on the pilot video games and on the updated requirements and will be tested again in all partner countries. The feedback of participants will be collected and all games will be modified accordingly, to ensure their quality and relevance for the teachers’ needs.The third testing phase will be organised to evaluate the training material presented in the fourth Result: the creation tutorials e-learning module, made for language teachers to gain skills in video game creation for their students. This result will be tested and evaluated in all partner countries and feedback will serve to improve the quality and consistency of the online course with the teachers’ skills and training needs.The participants in the schools’ testing phases will then be interviewed in order to gather their testimonies, impressions, and good practices on the use of video games for ESL. These interviews will be shared in our sixth Result, the implementation guide, in order to foster the exchange of good practice and provide real-life application examples to future language teachers willing to use the project Results for their course.<< Results >>Through this project and its results, the following outcomes are expected:For teachers:•Enable improvement of language teachers’ professional practice and easy access to pedagogically adapted resources•Offer reliable tools to be used in different settings (video games to be used online in class or at home)•Offer an innovative language teaching approach and methods enhancing the teachers’ digital skills•Facilitate the inclusion of all students in language courses through the use of adapted gamesFor learners:•Increase student engagement and motivation in language learning•Increase ‘Dys’ students’ feeling of inclusion in language courses•Support the acquisition of language skills for all learnersThe practical Results of the project will be: •A booklet on “Engagement as key for success for ESL learning”•30 D-ESL practice sheets (Dys-friendly)•36 Video Games and pedgagogical sequences•A Creation Tutorials e-learning module•A Resources database•An Implementation guideAdditional results:•The project website on which all the material will be uploaded•Field tests in all 5 countries of the partnership with at least 200 participants•3 transnational meetings + 2 virtual meetings•5 multiplier eventsIncreased experience and knowledge of the partners in innovative and inclusive practices for language learning.