Project Leads: Miss (Vienne) Hiu Yi Lin (EdD Research in Education), Professor Gail Forey (Department of Education), Dr Paul Chin (CLT) and Mrs Annette Goddard (Students Union).

The UK Government reported that in 2023/24 there were 732,285 international students (Bolton et al., 2025). Many of these students may feel underprepared for classroom dialogue due to unfamiliarity with local academic norms and expectations. Differences in communication styles, interpretations of participation, and confidence in expressing personal viewpoints can preclude meaningful engagement. This project proposes a game-based learning approach to enhance students’ willingness to communicate. Crucial to this approach is the Sprinkle-Sparkle game, built around Sprinkle, a fictional character created to support inclusive participation (Lin, 2026).

The game embeds Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956; Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001) by mapping its six cognitive domains onto colour coded poker chips with different values: Remembering (White 10), Understanding (Yellow 20), Applying (Red 30), Analysing (Blue 40), Evaluating (Green 50), and Creating (Black 60). This structure encourages contributions at multiple cognitive levels and helps develop understanding of the skills and knowledge needed for participation. The chip values also provide a transparent system for tracking participation.

To support this initiative, the project will offer discussion-based workshops that explore factors influencing willingness to communicate, encourage reflection on speaking confidence, and discuss strategies for reducing communication anxiety. Together, the game and workshops aim to create an inclusive learning environment that empowers learners and builds confidence to participate in class at the University of Bath.

The team will provide feedback in Spring 2027.