The Digital Platform “Kahoot” in the Brazilian Basic Education

Multiliteracies in English – Diversity and Multimodality in a Gamified Environment

Abstract

This article conceives that learning English is essential in the Brazilian Basic Education where multiliteracies, in a decolonial and emancipatory perspective, can be developed in favor of full citizenship. For this, teachers need to tune their pedagogical practices to the demands of today’s society, where the two aspects, multimodality and diversity, are intertwined in the process of educating students, called the “P” generation (for participatory). Knowledge in this additional language needs to be decolonized to include topics of social relevance that incite debates and the development of critical awareness in the pursuit of transformative and emancipatory learning. The homepage and some activities of the Kahoot gamified digital environment were chosen for a critical-interpretative documental analysis, to investigate how they contribute to a contemporary pedagogy in line with the changes arising from digital technologies, as our theoretical framework reveals. Our analysis shows that the various alternatives present in Kahoot for the development of knowledge in English, pari passu with the possibilities of including the two aspects of multiliteracies and gamification, can contribute to students’ agency and transformative role in learning, being autonomous, capable of playing and winning in the process of improving communication in English in the everyday social practices through language.