Digitising a Card Game for Teaching Pragmatic Markers

Abstract

Most language learning applications focus on pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar of a language. However, learning the pragmatics enables learners to interpret contextual meanings of specific words uttered by native speakers during conversations. An educational card game called Mind You! was developed for non-native English-speaking international students in Australia to help them learn English pragmatic markers. The card game was designed to encourage social constructivism and situated learning, where learners construct their own sentences based on their combined interpretations of pragmatic markers, images and scenarios displayed on cards to answer hypothetical questions. A mobile application of the card game is being developed as a supplementary resource when face-to-face or in-person learning is neither possible nor practical. Learners can listen to audios of pragmatic markers in sentences and type or record their own sentences based on their interpretations of the cards and share them online with other learners. This provides a platform for distance collaborative learning between other language learners where they share sentences based on different interpretations of different card combinations. The objective of the mobile application is to train learners in using pragmatic markers for English conversations outside the game. This work-in-progress manuscript outlines how the card game can be digitised into a mobile application.