The Use of Viber in Enhancing the Vocabulary Skills of Ethiopian Undergraduate Students: The Case of St. Mary’s University

This paper was presented at the 10th Edition of the Innovation in Language Learning conference, held November 9-10, 2017, in Florence, Italy.In this era of technology, it is believed that English language learning has been made more accessible and easier for those who are interested to learn it. Part of utilizing today’s technology includes using a smart phone, not only for social communication purposes but also for learning. One of the applications used for learning in this regard is Viber which can be installed on cell phones for people to communicate not only individually but in group. This may be considered as an important tool for language learning, as a cell phone opens a gate for downloading, uploading and storing learning materials and information files. This study attempts to explore the use of Viber in developing vocabulary skills during group chat among university learners at St. Mary’s University in Ethiopia. Twenty undergraduate students taking ‘Sophomore English Course’ at the University were selected using simple random sampling. Interview and focus group discussion were used to find out if Viber helped them to enhance their vocabulary skills. The findings show that the use of Viber can enable students to develop their vocabulary skills through a lifelong and informal activity, though some words may be spelt incorrectly and the communication could be full of abbreviations and acronyms. The study revealed that university teachers can use this application, in a controlled manner, to help their students improve their vocabulary skills

Enhancing Vocabulary Performance Through Mobile Assisted Language Learning at a Rural School in Indonesia

Living in this era of globalization and in the 4.0 industrial revolution, we cannot get away from technology because it has integrated into our lives and has penetrated the educational system. There were studies done on the use of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) to improve students’ vocabulary achievement in other parts of the world and also in some urban schools in Indonesia, but this study seeks to find whether the students’ vocabulary improved through the use of MALL at rural school in Bandung- Indonesia. This study was carried out to find the enhancement of using MALL in vocabulary teaching to 79 grade 8 students in Bandung. This study was designed for quantitative and experimental research. The students were separated into two groups, experimental and control groups. A day before coming to class, 15-20 words to learn the following day was sent to the experimental group through a short messages system (SMS) for them to read, find the synonyms and meanings of those words before coming to the class.   The result of the study showed that students in the experimental group performed better than the control group. It also proves that technology makes a significant difference in the learning of vocabulary in school

Minimum Competency Assessment Design to Improve Mathematical Literacy in Junior High Schools

Mathematical literacy ability is important in the process of learning mathematics at schools. Efforts to improve mathematical literacy skills mostly involve providing materials and integrating learning with an ethnomathematical approach and higherorder thinking skills (HOTs) related to real life. The minimum competency assessment (AKM) is one of the ways to photograph students’ numeracy skills so that students can face and understand the flow of information. This study aims to design AKM tools for junior high school students in the city of Semarang, with a focus on mathematics. The study included the administrators of the association of mathematics teachers and all junior high school mathematics teachers in the city of Semarang. A large-scale focus-group discussion was created. The results show that the AKM design has a positive influence on teachers. Since teachers receive contextual information more quickly, the form of AKM questions becomes up to date. Students, on the other hand, are happy as the questions are presented in the form of stories. Thus, students’ mathematics learning ability increases, this is indicated by students being able to understand information from AKM questions. Keywords: mathematical literacy, minimum competency assessment, HOT

Using a smart phone to learn Spanish: Does it work and will students use it?

Over time, mobile devices have penetrated the classroom, requiring new and beneficial ways to implement classroom instruction. Research suggests that Short Message Service (SMS) based instruction is an effective tool for acquiring second language (L2) vocabulary and idiom knowledge (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu,). Additionally, studies have found that students believe that mobile learning (m-learning) is beneficial to acquiring a second language (Cavus & Ibrahim; Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu, 2008). This study examined whether m-learning can lead to Spanish vocabulary familiarity and if sentence comprehension outperforms reading definitions. Participants were 29 native English speakers studying Spanish as a second language at the intermediate level. Learners received definitions of Spanish words in Spanish and sentences in Spanish on their mobile devices through a popular messaging application. The results demonstrate that vocabulary familiarity significantly improved and participants overall had a positive perception of m-learning. Our discussion explores the implications for classroom and mobile second language teaching

Developing reading skills and motivation through mobile phones

Continuous development of information and communication technologies has opened the door to a wide range of opportunities for digital learning. Recent didactic concepts, such as student-centered teaching stress the need for learner autonomy, which includes non-formal learning aided by modern technologies such as cell phones. Mobile phones have become an essential part of the teenager’s life. If incorporated in the learning process, they could have a positive effect on student’s motivation, which in turn would lead to improved achievements. The aim of this study was to determine the attitudes of Croatian students of English and German towards the use of modern technologies in teaching foreign languages. The study evaluates the students' attitudes towards reading comprehension in a foreign language when using traditional methods (multiple choice questions and paper-pencil C-Test method) as opposed to solving tasks with the use of mobile technology. The results of the study show that, although students find online testing more interesting and less stressful, they still prefer to be tested in the classical way

The Development of a SMS-based Teaching and Learning System

The short message service (SMS) technology is one of the most stable mobile technologies around. Most of our tertiary students carry mobile phones with SMS facilities and can be used for teaching and learning. There are many projects of using SMS technologies in education as outlined in the literature review, but many publications do not provide the possible underlying technologies to implement such the teaching and learning systems. In this paper, the development of a SMS-based teaching and learning system is presented. The underlying technology of using GSM modems to build the SMS-based teaching and learning system is revealed. The system is capable of supporting administrative, teaching and learning activities via the SMS technology. Examples of various activities such as brainstorming, voting, and assessment activities supported by the system are illustrated

Generating Internal Motivation through Mobile Application Technology

This paper is a practical account of the author’s experimental analysis of using mobile application technology in the undergraduate ELT classes of Dhofar University, Salalah, Oman. In today’s world, technology plays an indispensable role in human life. Integrating latest technological applications in the classrooms can be a challenging task for many teachers, but it is undoubtedly a powerful tool for enhancing the quality of education. This paper outlines how to generate internal motivation and enhance the cognitive skills of students through the innovative use of mobile/smart phones in the classroom. Nowadays, innovative use of mobile applications in the classroom is advocated by numerous educational experts. This shift in perspective is necessitated by the large-scale digitalization of education and educational resources. Consequently, this study explores how mobile devices can be used effectively for enhancing involvement and motivation of students in various learning activities to promote learner autonomy and peer learning opportunities within the classroom. This experiment eventually resulted in a visible rise in the motivational graph of the whole class as testified by students’ performance in their tests. Finally, this paper also outlines how mobile learning can be integrated into a conventional university curriculum

Using Mobile Instant Messaging in Teaching Vocabulary to Pre-intermediate EFL Learners: The Case of WhatsApp

Smartphones are becoming an increasingly common part of our daily lives. Applications used in these systems are extremely varied due to their extraordinary efficiency. With respect to language teaching, the use of these technologies has opened up new doors, changing innovatively the way teachers teach and students learn. Accordingly, this study aimed to find out the impacts of using WhatsApp as a mobile instant messaging application on teaching vocabulary among pre-intermediate EFL learners. To this end, 60 Iranian pre-intermediate EFL learners were selected from a private English Language Institute. Then, they were randomly assigned to two equal groups- an experimental group and a control group. They were pre-tested by a researcher-made vocabulary test.  Then, the treatment was applied to both groups. As the treatment, the control group was taught with traditional activities whereas the experimental group was taught with the use of mobile application (WhatsApp). At the end of the instruction, a researcher-made vocabulary post-test was administered. The results of independent samples t-test and one-way ANCOVA indicated that the experimental group had better performance on the post-test compared to control group revealing the usefulness of the mobile application utilized in this study on learning vocabulary

A Theoretical Approach to initiate Mobile Assisted Language Learning among school leavers and University Students of Sri Lanka

Mobile devices have proven to be an appropriate tool in the area of mobile language learning, by expanding the horizons of learning beyond the classroom education. Power of mobile devices and advanced technologies have made ease of access to educational resources and materials to the learner. This study is a part of an ongoing research focusing on enhancing English Language Learning among school leavers and undergraduates. The objective of this paper is to present the results of a study conducted to identify the prospects of m-learning among the target study community, who were school leavers and undergraduates of Sri Lanka. A design based research methodology will be used in this study along with activity theory as a framework in order to analyse the situation and find out the prospects in introducing m-learning among the target community

Learning English phrasal verbs through interactive text-messaging

This study was carried out to investigate the effectiveness of interactive text-messaging in learning English phrasal verbs by Iranian EFL learners. The study employed a pre-test, post-test quasi-experimental design with two experimental groups exposed to two learning conditions (paper-based and SMS-based) and a control group. Forty-eight EFL learners were assigned into two experimental and one control group(s). The participants in each experimental group were divided into four smaller groups and performed an interactive task (i.e.,expand the story) in two different ways. The results indicated that although both groups improved significantly from pre-test to post-test and did significantly better than their counterparts in the control group, the SMS-based group outperformed the paper-based group in learning English phrasal verbs. Furthermore, the results of the delayed post-test showed that the participants in the SMS-based group had significantly more vocabulary gains than their paper-based counterparts