The Use of Mobile Learning in ELT

RATIH WIJAYANTI

1507042024

In this digital age of time, today millions and millions of people worldwide are mobile-phone subscribers. A perusal of the literature shows the use of mobile phones in different educational and social settings including restaurants, public transportation, movie theaters, streets and classrooms.

DEFINING MOBILE LEARNING

Trifonova and Ronchetti (n.d) states that (M- learning) mobile learning is “e-learning through mobile computational devices. Generally speaking, by mobile technology we mean all mobile devices that include Personal Digital Assistance (PDA), digital cell phones and IPOD. These devices are “small, autonomous and unobtrusive enough to accompany us in every moment in our every-day life, and that can be used for some form of learning”. 

They can be very helpful and useful for us in many different ways. For example, they allow interaction with people, via voice and through the exchange of written messages, still and moving images. Further to this, they are good tools for assessing content, which can be stored locally on the device or can be reached through interconnection. ( Trifonova and Ronchetti(n.d)). 

MOBILE LEARNING, ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

Among all modern communication devices, mobile phones are the most powerful communication medium even richer than email or chat as it can act as a learning device despite its technical limitations. With such a learning device the learner controls the learning process and progress in his/her own space based on his/her cognitive state. 

Learning through the computer or e-learning enables the learners to learn in a non-classroom environment when they are at home in front of their personal computers online or offline. However, learning through the mobile phone or m-learning provides the learners with the opportunity to learn when they are in the bus, outside or at work doing their part-time jobs. In fact, they can learn every time and everywhere they are.  

Two main characteristics of mobile devices are portability and connectivity. As for connectivity, designing the mobile system must have capability of being connected and communicated with the learning website using the wireless network of the device to access learning material ubiquitously including short message service (SMS) and mobile e-mail. Portability enables learners to move mobile devices and bring learning materials.

Klopfer and his colleagues state the following properties of mobile devices: 1) portability: such devices can be taken to different places due to small size and weight; 2) social interactivity: exchanging data and collaboration with other learners is possible through mobile devices; 3) context sensitivity: the data on the mobile devices can be gathered and responded uniquely to the current location and time; 4) connectivity: mobile devices can be connected to other devices, data collection devices, or a common network by creating a shared network; 5) individuality: activities platform can be customized for individual learner .

The widespread influence of the market increased the popularity of the mobile phone, and this fulfills the need of teachers to provide tools and software for the learners in teaching contexts. Moreover, comparing with other wireless devices such as laptop computers, mobile phones are rather inexpensive having functions as Internet browsers available in most devices. With such inexpensive devices accessible to even the poorest areas and having the functionalities of e-mail or SMS, it is now possible to transfer information to and from mobile phones between instructors and learners without any difficulty. 

Although learning service through mobile devices has some advantages, it has its own constraints as small screen, reading difficulty on such a screen, data storage and multimedia limitations, and the like. Many of the mobile phones are not designed for educational purposes. That is, it is difficult for the learners to use them for the task given by the teachers to be carried out. This is partly due to the initial design of such devices, and partly due to non-existence of such developed mobile phones. However, those devices which are appropriate for specific learning tasks are too expensive for most of the learners to buy. Thus, teachers should be aware of what kinds of tools learners have, and then set to chose or adapt resources compatible to such tools.

In an experiment, Stockwell demonstrated that the learners found the activities take too long to complete on the mobile devices, and consequently, some of them preferred to use their PCs to do their assigned tasks. In that experiment many learners indicated from the outset that they did not intend to use the mobile phones for doing their tasks because of the cost of Internet access, the screen size, and the keypad. 

EXAMPLES OF MOBILE LEARNING

Wireless communication technology are applied to many fields such as GPS navigation, wireless monitoring system as well as learning various materials including learning language skills. Mobile learning can take place either within the classroom or outside it. In the former case, mobile phones possessing appropriate software are very effective in collaborative learning among small groups. Although this type of learning has nothing to do with the mobility property of such devices, it provides the learners with the opportunity of close interaction, conversation, and decision-making among the members of their group due to the specific design of the learning activity on mobile phones. These types of interaction among learners and their physical movement can hardly be achieved when desktop or laptop computers are to be used. 

Mobile learning technology is more useful for doing activities outside the classroom. Such activities enable learning to be more directly connected with the real world experiments. Moreover, learning through mobile phones outside the classroom has the advantage of better exploiting the learner's free time; even the students on the move can improve their learning skills. 

SMS-based learning is another development in the use of wireless technologies in education in which receiving wanted text messages supports learning outside of classroom and helps learners benefit from their teacher's experimentation with mobile technology.   

Game-based learning is another theme for mobile learning in which learning materials are so designed to be integrated with aspects of physical environment. In such environments, learning activities are facilitated using the mobile technology which serves as a link between the real world of knowledge and the visual world of the game. Time Lab, for instance, is a game about climate change and its effects. Players succeed to get information about the introduction of possible new environmental laws via their mobile devices in different locations as they progress in the game. They will later discuss the results of the game in the classroom.

The m-learning games can also be used to teach second language skills such as vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, listening and reading comprehension and spelling. According to Canny, cell phones offer an ideal platform for learning since they are ubiquitous, affordable, compact and wireless.

For further information about mobile learning, see the mind mapping below :

MOBILE-ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING (MALL)

When, in 1973, the mobile devices were invented for the first time, no one ever thought some day they would become an important part of routine life. As soon as the mobile phones became a crucial part of our lives, there felt a need for using them in language learning tasks. 

These days mobile devices such as PDAs, phones, and other handheld devices, are used everywhere for doing everything ranging from voice calling to making short message, video chat, listening to audio (Mp3, Mp4, Mpeg), web surfing, shopping, and the like. Apart from these benefits, mobile devices have increasingly grown toward becoming tools for education and language learning, and all its users from teachers or students are getting used to this environment to make education as ubiquitous as possible. Moreover, the emerging of internet made open and distance learning a means of receiving education from all parts of the world. In a short period, the attractiveness of distance learning led to the realization that various mobile devices provide a very effective resource for education. This way, many researchers tried to make mobile devices a rich resource for teaching and learning. It was, in fact, a challenging affair to cover learning tasks by a mobile phone.

MALL deals with the use of mobile technology in language learning. Students do not always have to study a second language in a classroom. They may have the opportunity to learn it using mobile devices when they desire and where they are. As learning English is considered a main factor for professional success and a criterion for being educated in many communities, providing more convenient environment for people to learn English is one of the strategic educational goals towards improving the students' achievement and supporting differentiation of learning needs.  

There are many researches and developments towards the use of wireless technology for different aspects of language learning. In the following lines it has been tried to demonstrate the benefits of using mobile phones in learning English as a second language. Areas of mobile-based language learning are diverse among which the most common ones are vocabulary, listening, grammar, phonetics, reading comprehension, etc.

References

Al Aamri, Kamla Suleiman. 2011. The Use of Mobile Phones in Learning English Language.

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Huang, C. and P. Sun. (2010) “Using mobile technologies to support mobile multimedia English listening exercises in daily life”. In: The International Conference on Computer and Network Technologies in Education (CNTE 2010), At: http://cnte2010.cs.nhcue.edu.tw/

Klopfer, E.; K. Squire, and H. Jenkins. (2002). "Environmental Detectives: PDAs as a window into a virtual simulated world." In: Proceedings of IEEE International Workshop on Wireless and Mobile Technologies in Education. Vaxjo, Sweden: IEEE Computer Society,  pp. 95-98.

Kukulska-Hulme A. and L. Shield. (2008). “An Overview of Mobile Assisted Language  Learning: Can Mobile Devices Support Collaborative Practice in Speaking and listening?” http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1520087, accessed on December, 19th 2016.

Kukulska-Hulme. A. (2009). “Will mobile learning change language learning?” ReCALL 21(2),  pp. 157-165. 

Microsoft research program. (2010). At:http://research.microsoft.com/enus/collaboration/papers/berkeley.pdf, accessed Jul. 2010.

Quotations .(n.d).Mobile Phones In The Classroom- Saint Or Sin? Retrieved on December 19th 2016 from http://web.mac.com/mediamama/GovanHighSchool/Mobile_P hones.html

Tayebeh Mosavi Miangah and Amin Nezarat. 2012. Mobile-Assisted Language Learning.  International Journal of Distributed and Parallel Systems (IJDPS) Vol.3, No.1,DOI : 10.5121/ijdps.2012.3126.