MOBILE TECHNOLOGY FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS: STUDENTS’ AND TRAINEE TEACHERS’ REFLECTIVE VIEWS OF CELL PHONES FOR ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNING AND TEACHING

Abstract

Even if scholars realize the emergence of cell phones opening up a range of opportunities for ‘learning on the move’, there are not many studies on how they can be used and how students and trainee teachers view them as tools for English Language Teaching and Learning in EFL context. This case study, therefore, aims to explore students’ post-intervention views to mobile assisted lessons, examine trainee teachers’ reaction to the experience of teaching with cell phones and identify issues with learning and teaching reading and listening with Cell phones. To achieve these objectives, twelve trainee teachers’ short-time attachment reports to five secondary schools, one teacher training college and one university on applying cell phones for teaching listening and reading skills as part of the tasks for their Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) course during 2015 to 2017 academic years were analyzed. The reports indicated that students viewed cell phones as useful tools for learning reading and listening, but it was also reported that they were concerned with their skills of using cell phones for learning. Similarly, the self-report showed that the trainee teachers themselves viewed the cell phones as helpful tools for teaching reading and listening despite some technical difficulties they faced. Finally, it was recommended that such working cases need to be expanded to other Ethiopian educational contexts and be embraced by as many schools as possible.

Keywords: Cell phone; CALL, Reading, Listening, MALL