Digitising a Card Game for Teaching Pragmatic Markers

This work-in-progress manuscript by Jonathan Marquez proposes digitising Mind You!, a non-digital card game designed to teach English pragmatic markers such as well, anyway, and mind you to non-native English-speaking international students in Australia. The game is grounded in situated learning and social constructivism, asking learners to construct sentences that combine a pragmatic marker card, a topic card depicting an Australian or fantasy scenario, and a hypothetical situation card. The manuscript argues that pragmatic competence, unlike grammar or vocabulary, depends on interpreting context as native speakers do, and that a mobile application could extend the game's benefits to settings where face-to-face instruction is impractical.

The proposed application would offer two modes. Competitive Game adapts the original rules for up to five online players who submit sentences by typing or recording them and then vote for favourites. Solo Learning allows learners to practise with different card combinations at their own pace, upload sentences, and receive peer feedback through likes, comments, or alternative sentences, with audio support for pronunciation and tone. The author draws on literature on mobile learning, citing its advantages in interactivity, accessibility, personalised pacing, immediate feedback, and online community building, and notes that these benefits align with the game's collaborative aims.

The manuscript is explicitly preliminary and presents no empirical results for the digital version. It acknowledges open challenges, including the possibility that uploaded sentences may go unanswered or reinforce incorrect pragmatic usage, and it proposes an iterative design process beginning with Solo Learning, along with planned experience points and leaderboards to sustain engagement. Future work is outlined as playtesting a functioning prototype with current English learners, using interviews, surveys, and language assessments to evaluate improvement in pragmatic awareness and to refine the application.