Mobile-assisted language learning
With just a little bit of help from my phone...
90 percent of people in the entire world have a mobile phone network and 41 percent of the world's population has more than one mobile device. These are data taken from the most recent surveys done by Colley (in 2010) the Oracle (in 2011). The numbers, I imagine, have increased by now.
How many of students nowadays keep exercise books, notepads or other paper-based learning equipment? Text, written on paper is non-transferable, non-printable, non-editable and non-interactive. Digital text, on the other hand, can be easily edited, converted to other formats, printed, shared and copied. When was the last time a student actually took the time to browse the pages of a paper dictionary? Why should he?
According to the same survey mentioned above, 85 percent of mobile phones shipped worldwide by 2011 will have an in-built internet browsers and between 2010-2015 it is estimated that the mobile access to web will exceed the computer access. So what does this all mean? Basically, it means that students worldwide constantly carry a tool with themselves which can potentially be used for education but which is being ignored. There is already quite a variety of mobile phone Apps for language learning. Here are some examples:
- Speak English (improves pronunciation)
- Grammar
- English verbs
- English podcasts (lsitening and speaking)
- Toefl IBT preparation apps
- IELTS preperation
- Dictionaries
- Language games Unless the educators start seeing all these as valid learning tools, there may be a danger of a potential gap between the way we understand learning and the way the learners do. I would have to repeat myself here and re-post the quote I had in one of the earlier posts.“In a world of change, the learners shall inherit the earth, while the learned shall find themselves perfectly suited for a world that no longer exists.”
Eric Hoffer
Think of this. Does your world still exist?
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