Sunday, November 10, 2013

MALL


Let’s look around. Everyone uses mobile phones everywhere becoming an integral part of our everyday lives. Mobile phones have great potential and ever-increasing functions that all the users are skillful at using. Viewing them from the learning perspective, so we can state that they highly support learning in the second language classrooms. Mobile phones are social tools that are easy and comfortable to use. Students really enjoy and are obsessive about using technology in the classroom because of easy access to materials and the ability to practice anytime and anywhere.

Thus, I quite agree with David Read that mobile devices are slowly becoming part of the furniture in the classroom just as the computer did before. When reading blogs about using mobile phones in ESL classroom I was really amazed at discovering Livescribe Pen as a Feedback Tool. It is really a fantastic tool as it allows to record both handwritten and audio at the same time using a Dictaphone on the pen and special dotted paper. The students will have the opportunity to make handwritten notes when listening in a lecture and be able to listen back to the precise bits of audio later on the word. Mobile phones have really incredible functions.  
However, as a TEFL professional, I should consider only the ones that can be applied in EFL classroom context. In my opinion, students using mobile phones first of all improve their listening skills. It gives them the opportunity to listen to audio-books and podcasts. Also, they can record themselves, thus improving their speaking skills. Reinders (2010) highlighted 20 ideas in his article for using mobile phones in a language classroom. It is really interesting to get to know these ideas  that can be employed in ESL context. Students can use the note feature to collect every day language. They can send the notes they have done during the class to their classmates as a text message. Also, they can also play games for mobile phones that involve a focus on language. But these games should be suitable for second language learners to encourage them to engage with the target language. They can largely use dictionaries and free programs for reinforcing vocabulary. But the main challenges that teachers will encounter in Armenian classrooms will be the lack of smart phones in all classes and the access to the Internet and an increase of noise and disruption in class.

       Therefore, we should be more cautious when implementing them in the classroom environment and should take into account the students’ proficiency level and easy access to mobile phones. 

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