A particular element of computer games which significantly affects the gaming experience is avatars, i.e., representations of virtual players. In particular player-avatar similarity is related to the game experience, however, the results of previous studies are not conclusive. There is also a lack of research in which participants actually create their own avatars. The first aim of this study is to check whether there is a relationship between the player-avatar similarity and the game experience: game efficacy, game enjoyment and immersion. As a second goal the study examines gender as the mechanism responsible for the relationship between avatar player-similarity and game experience: game enjoyment, game efficacy and immersion. In the study (N = 130) participants created their avatars, played designed computer game Characterium and assessed their experience. The results demonstrate that player-avatar similarity was positively related to immersion level (but not to game efficacy and game enjoyment). Gender was not a significant moderator of the relationships between avatar similarity and game efficacy, game enjoyment and immersion. We consider this study to be a step forward in better understanding the mechanisms underlying the relationship between player-avatar similarity and game experience. For the first time, the relationship between player-avatar similarity and immersion was demonstrated in the condition of creating an avatar by the subjects and controlling it in the game. We also identify potential reasons why our hypotheses have not been confirmed.

Despite the large number of studies conducted on teachers’ oral corrective feedback, the findings of these studies have been mainly limited to cognitive orientations rooted in experimental designs and the verbal discourse of the teacher as the main object of inquiry. Considering teachers’ affective concerns regarding their corrective feedback and the shift from negative psychology to positive psychology in the field of second/foreign language teaching as well as the entirety of the teacher’s corrective repertoire, in this case study, we aimed to explore the enjoyment building capacity of a teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback in a university general English course. We video-recorded the teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback including verbal and nonverbal semiotic resources like gesture, gaze, and posture while observing the learners’ emotional experiences for eight sessions. We also conducted stimulated recall interviews with some learners and collected their written journals about the experiences of enjoyment with regard to the teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback scenarios. The teacher’s multimodal corrective feedback was analyzed through systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA) and the content of the interview transcripts as well as the written journals were qualitatively analyzed. The findings indicated that the teacher’s inherent multimodality in his corrective feedback broadened the main dimensions of enjoyment by raising the learners’ attention to their errors, heightening their focus on the correct form, and increasing the salience of his corrective feedback. Further arguments regarding the findings are discussed.