The Role of Mobile Phone and Powerpoint in Enhancing Writing Skills: Lecturers’ Reflections

Abstract

These day mobile phones are being resorted to as indispensable pedagogical tools for imparting language skills to the present day students who are termed as ‘Generation Y’, ‘Net Generation’ and above all ‘Digital Natives’. Mobile phones have the potential to be reliable pedagogical tool to teach writing which is the most neglected skills to the intermediate students. The current paper examines the perceptions of two lecturers regarding the use of mobile phones and PowerPoint in teaching descriptive essay writing skills to intermediate students at M.A.O. College, Lahore. The qualitative data for this purpose was collected by means of semi-structured interviews from those two lecturers who taught experimental as well as control groups respectively. The findings of the study indicated that the lecturer of experimental group was very much in favour of mobile phones to be incorporated in the teaching writing class. Even the lecturer of control group favoured the use of new technology as she was not in favour of PowerPoint to be used for teaching writing skills. Moreover, the findings of the study indicated that the mobile phones can very easily, successfully and conveniently be employed as pedagogical tool to impart writing skills as they can motivate the lecturers for teaching as well as the students for learning the writing skills.

Impacts of Technology in Learning: Mobile Typing Applications for Writing and Accomplishing Academic Tasks among Arabic-Speaking Undergraduate Students

“…For instance, two studies found that around 95% of Saudi people have access to mobile apps, which allows students in higher education to use several apps to help with their typing, academic tasks, and education [10,14]. Arabian undergraduate students have been using various kinds of mobile apps, including WhatsApp, SMS message apps, Drops, Telegram, or Microsoft Word, that make it easier for them to accomplish their academic tasks anywhere or at any time, so that they can present clear and cohesive typed work [5,[15][16][17][18][19][20]. These mobile typing apps have enabled undergraduate students to download and access educational tools that are important in deepening outcomes in classroom settings.…”

“…A study from Saudi Arabia discussed the effect of using SMS message apps and social media through mobile apps on Saudi students' academic writing, and indicated that although mobile phone usage played a role in improving comfort while working and shortened the time required to complete academic tasks, it also affected students' ability to spell words correctly and build sentences within their academic reports [37]. On the other hand, other studies have discussed the use of mobile apps in teaching, learning, and improving the language skills of students, including their writing [20,[38][39][40][41][42][43]. For instance, one study stated that using mobile apps such as SMS message apps and email for educational purposes has improved the academic writing of students, especially in terms of grammar and vocabulary [44].…”