Designing for semiotic alignment: integrating Gallwey’s Inner Game and edusemiotics in technology-enhanced formative assessment in EMI higher education

Purpose This study examines how student engagement in English-Medium Instruction (EMI) higher education is shaped by the interaction between technology-enhanced formative assessment, multimodal meaning-making, and learners' internal dialogue. Drawing on edusemiotics and Gallwey's Inner Game theory, the study proposes semiotic alignment as a conceptual lens for understanding how evaluative and intuitive sign systems influence participation. The purpose is not to test a predictive model, but to explore how digital feedback practices may recalibrate the symbolic conditions for engagement in linguistically demanding EMI contexts. Design/methodology/approach An exploratory qualitative multiple case study design was adopted. Data were collected from four undergraduate EMI courses at a Taiwanese university using technology-enhanced formative assessment tools, including Microsoft Forms, Microsoft OneNote, and a CEFR-aligned mobile English test. Three contrasting student cases from engineering, medicine, and design were selected through maximum variation sampling. Data sources included interviews, weekly reflective prompts, digital artifacts, and an interaction frequency index. Thematic analysis combined deductive coding informed by edusemiotics and Inner Game theory with inductive pattern identification. Findings Findings show that students' engagement was mediated by how digital tools functioned symbolically within the classroom. When feedback practices emphasized evaluation, accuracy, and exposure, students experienced semiotic resistance manifested, as silence, perfectionism, or modality mismatch. When tools supported anonymity, multimodal expression, and dialogic feedback, students demonstrated increased participation, symbolic risk-taking, and interpretive agency. Across cases, semiotic alignment emerged when classroom sign systems reduced Self 1 interference and enabled intuitive Self 2 engagement. The study proposes semiotic alignment as a tentative framework for understanding technology-mediated engagement in EMI. Research limitations/implications This study is exploratory and based on a small number of qualitative cases from a single institutional context, which limits generalisability. The findings do not establish causal relationships between technology use and learning outcomes. Instead, the study contributes conceptually by introducing semiotic alignment as an analytic lens for examining technology-mediated engagement. Future research should test and refine this framework across larger samples, diverse institutional settings, and longitudinal designs, and explore how semiotic alignment relates to measurable indicators of participation, affect, and learning performance in technology-enhanced higher education. Practical implications The findings suggest that digital learning technologies function not only as instructional tools but also as symbolic resources shaping learner engagement. Educators designing technology-enhanced formative assessment should attend to how feedback formats, anonymity, and multimodal affordances influence students' internal dialogue. Practical strategies include using low-stakes digital reflections, multimodal submission options, and dialogic feedback routines to reduce evaluative pressure and support learner agency. These design considerations may help instructors foster more inclusive and supportive digital learning environments in EMI and other linguistically demanding contexts. Social implications As higher education becomes increasingly digital and internationalised, students face intensified linguistic, evaluative, and affective pressures. This study highlights how technology-enhanced assessment practices can either reinforce or mitigate these pressures through their symbolic meanings. By foregrounding semiotic alignment, the research points to the importance of designing digital learning environments that promote trust, participation, and interpretive agency. Such environments may contribute to more equitable access to learning opportunities for students operating in additional languages or in culturally unfamiliar academic contexts. Originality/value This study offers an original conceptual contribution by integrating edusemiotics and Inner Game theory to examine technology-enhanced learning in higher education. Rather than focusing on tool effectiveness, it introduces semiotic alignment as a lens for analysing how digital formative assessment mediates learners' internal dialogue, engagement, and meaning-making. The value of the study lies in its theoretical synthesis and empirically grounded illustrations, which extend current understandings of information and learning technologies beyond functional use to their symbolic and affective dimensions. The framework provides a foundation for future research and design-oriented inquiry.