چکیده:
This study attempted to evaluate and compare language learning apps and the related traditional books on the same subject. The apps included Murphy’s English Grammar and Cambridge Discovery Readers and the traditional materials were English Grammar in Use and Developing Reading Skills. The study, thus, aimed to do a comparative analysis between traditional ELT materials and the digital versions. In doing so, it aimed to evaluate ELT mobile apps and consider their effectiveness for English language learning. The analysis was conducted based on the frameworks adapted from Hubbard (2006) and Reinders and Pegrum (2015). Based on these frameworks, the overall features and functions of the selected applications were analyzed in terms of three categories: ‘content and design’, ‘L2 approaches’ and ‘technology’. The analysis demonstrated that these ELT apps seemed to be effective in that they could provide a personal and learner-centered learning opportunity for learners as they would make them independent from any time and any place. Needless to say, by realizing mobility as a more situated, field-dependent and collaborative form of learning, the effective design and use of ELT mobile applications should continue to be studied in order to suggest the right direction to effective MALL.
خلاصه ماشینی:
The apps included Murphy’s English Grammar and Cambridge Discovery Readers and the traditional materials were English Grammar in Use and Developing Reading Skills.
Efforts have been made to understand how mobile technologies relate to both traditional and innovative ways of teaching and learning, showing the applicability of mobile learning across a wide spectrum of activity (Kukulska-Hulme & Traxler, 2007, Naismith, 2004) as well as highlighting the most important emerging issues (Sharples, 2006).
For example, instructors teach short English lessons by sending them to students’ emails via mobile phones (Thornton & Houser, 2005) or giving vocabulary instruction via SMS for Italian learners in Australia (Levy & Kennedy, 2005, cited in Chinnery, 2006).
Hence, there is a need for research into effectiveness of digital materials, specifically instructional apps developed for learning/teaching different language skills.
In general, MALL has been considered as a subset of both mobile learning and computer-assisted language learning; however, Kukulska-Hulme and Shield (2008) note that MALL differs from CALL “in its use of personal, portable devices that enable new ways of learning, emphasizing continuity or spontaneity of access and interaction across different contexts of use” (p.
First Research Question Discussion This study was concerned with describing major features of mobile apps developed specifically for the purposes of language learning.
Common feature and exercises Regarding the information presented about the selected traditional ELT materials and mobile apps, I found a variety of features such as a rich mix of text, audio, graphics, images, music and even videos in language learning applications.