Pilat, Vitaly

Electronic archive of Tomsk Polytechnic University

110  MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING  Vitaly O. Pilat National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University  Nowadays modern mobile devices offer great opportunities not only for entertainment and communication, but also for learning individually and in groups inside and outside the classroom. Mobile learning can be defined as the use of personal pocket devices such as tablet computers, mobile phones or smartphones for educational purposes. Mobile learning is often considered as a new stage of development of distance and e-learning due to the fact that mobile devices provide greater availability and accessibility of educational materials. Mobile technologies offer a number of benefits for language learners. The major advantage of mobile devices is providing unlimited access to resources outside the classroom, encouraging students to study wherever and whenever they want. Another benefit of mobile technologies is individualization and personalization of the learning process as students can choose their own pace, tempo and learning style. Promoting collaboration among students is one more advantage of mobile learning. Such Web 2.0 services as forums, blogs, wiki, offer opportunities for making mutual projects, peer assessing and learning from each other. Despite the huge educational potential of mobile technologies, the most popular types of mobile applications used by students are dictionary and translation apps [1]. This is due to the fact that a lot of students are skeptical about the educational value of mobile devices because they simply do not know where to find and how to use learning resources. Moreover, the most common technical challenges of using portable devices are: the cost of wireless connection; regular charge of mobile devices‘ battery; small screen sizes for displaying information and others. Overcoming the challenges above and developing methodological aspects of using mobile technologies for learning foreign languages will contribute to the concept of lifelong learning.   References: 1. Edwige F. Simon. Using mobile learning resources in foreign language instruction. – 2012. – Retrieved from: http://er.educause.edu/articles/2012/6/using-mobile-learning-resources-in-foreign-language-instruction (date of access: 19.09.2016). 

Mobile technologies in foreign language learning

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Electronic archive of Tomsk Polytechnic University