Users’ familiar situational contexts facilitate the practice of EFL in elementary schools with mobile devices

Abstract

It is beneficial for students to experience situational learning, especially for English as a foreign language (EFL) learning. Providing more listening and speaking opportunities could help EFL students with English learning. Our research proposes a listening and speaking practice system employing personal digital assistants (PDAs) for situated learning using contexts with which students would be familiar. The proposed system attempts to help participating EFL students by presenting learning contexts in familiar situations, such as during lunch at school. The results show that the proposed system and designed activities provided EFL elementary school students with listening and speaking practice opportunities in basic vocabulary and simple sentences with the support of familiar, situational learning. In the experiment, the experimental group learned multimedia-based learning materials about food materials at lunch with PDAs. In contrast, the control group learned via paper-based learning materials in class without real contextual support. After the experiment, findings reveal that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in learning achievement. By providing recommended sample voices recorded by peers, students in the experimental group could repeatedly listen to the recordings in familiar situations, thus obtaining more opportunities to practice and interact with peers later. The other significant finding is that the number of peers used to practice speaking English in daily contexts, defined as practice diversity, was significantly correlated to learning improvement. That is, when students practiced speaking English with an increased number of peers, in familiar contexts, their English skills improved. After interviews with students, an interesting phenomenon was identified; students in the experimental group extended their learning from school to home. Furthermore, students' learning was not only a deliberate event or situation -learning also took place spontaneously in their daily lives. Therefore, the proposed system and activities can help EFL students, particularly novices, listen to and speak English in familiar situational contexts.

Effects of using mobile devices on English listening diversity and speaking for EFL elementary students

“…Therefore, the importance of practicing listening and speaking skills cannot be more emphasized, as it has a direct and positive influence on learning performance (Hwang & Chen, 2013;Hwang, Shadiev, & Huang, 2011). For example, Kukulska-Hulme and Shield (2008) indicated that practicing in pairs can increase practice opportunities, and thus help students in EFL contexts.…”

“…According to Hwang and Chen (2013), Hwang et al (in press), and Hwang et al (2011), the more students practiced speaking and listening, the better skills they acquired, especially those who speak English as a foreign language, because they usually only practice speaking in class. Consequently, the longer EFL students spent on practicing skills such as speaking (Hwang et al, in press;Hwang, Wu, & Su, 2008), rehearsing (Thorton & Houser, 2005), and listening (Hazan, Sennema, Iba, & Faulkner, 2005), the better their speaking and listening skills became.…”

“…For example, Kukulska-Hulme and Shield (2008) indicated that practicing in pairs can increase practice opportunities, and thus help students in EFL contexts. Furthermore, Hwang and Chen (2013) suggested that imitation and revision are important language practice activities in pairs.…”

Addressing Foreign Language Learning Anxiety with Facebook

“…These articles revealed that a majority of experiments demonstrated an accrued effectiveness over traditional methods of learning. This effectiveness impacted the level of learning (Başoğlu & Akdemir, 2010;Hwang & Chen, 2011), anxiety (Gabarre & Gabarre, 2010), motivation (Daher, 2010;Nah, 2011), satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and perceived ease-of-use (Chang & Hsu, 2011). For these reasons, the effectiveness of m-Learning should no longer be the main focus of research, as this has already been well established.…”

Constructing an evidence-base for future CALL design with ‘engineering power’: The need for more basic research and instrumental replication

“…That is, they fail to acknowledge the fact that a particular technology might be used in a variety of different ways to support language learning and to implement a variety of different approaches to and methods of language teaching (Garrett, 1991) and fully exploit the added value of new technologies (Yildiz & Atkins, 1993): "technology is often used to change and expand the intended learning outcomes rather than to increase the level of performance in exactly the same areas as those targets by classroom instruction" (Chapelle, 2010, p. 70). With respect to the latter, in CALL research the possibility to engage in language learning activities 'anytime, anywhere' through the use of mobile technologies has been exploited to implement spaced vocabulary learning (Lu, 2008) and to contextualise vocabulary learning, that is, adapt it to the learners' immediate local environment (Chen & Li, 2010;Hwang & Chen, 2013;Gutiérrez-Colon et al, 2013).…”