Mobile Assisted Language Learning

Chinnery, G. M. (2006). Going to the MALL: Mobile assisted language learning. Language Learning & Technology, 10(1), 9-16.

In this article, Chinnery (2006) presents some MALL applications using cell phones, personal digital assistants, and portable digital audio players. I’m quite interested in two examples illustrated in the paper. In the project developed by Thornton and Houser (2002; 2003; 2005), vocabulary instruction was provided by SMS (short message service); “three times a day, they emailed short mini-lessons to students, sent in discrete chunks so as to be easily readable on the tiny screens;” and “ lessons defined five words per week, recycled previous vocabulary, and used the words in various contexts, including episodic stories.” The results of this project show that SMS instruction is effective in increasing students’ vocabulary words and improving their scores as well as preferred by the vast majority of students. I think by using SMS for vocabulary learning, students could take advantage of their spare time, and at one time, a mini-lesson on the tiny screens is not a big heavy burden to students. They could digest one lesson and then continue to another one. Besides, frequent rehearsal and recycled previous vocabulary is sent in messages for students’ revision. SMS instruction is really a good way to assure students’ acquisition and revision of vocabulary knowledge; however, the availability of cell phones and the cost of SMS are big concerns for teachers and students in the mainland China. If it’s possible, I would like to do similar experiment in my future teaching environment. What would be the results?

Another example is moblogging, a combination of mobile and weblogging. Chinnery (2006) shows that “moblogs offer the potential to expound these benefits by removing time and place boundaries and adding authentic and personal visual content.” I agree that students could do moblogging on their own time in any place where wireless net is available, but fluent moblogging requires high-quality cell phones as well. As to moblogging instruction, if students only need cell phones for the sake of calling and texting, do they need to buy another one exclusively for moblogging instruction? So I think if it’s possible, moblogging could be better used by students for the purpose of self-learning, writing practices and so on.

At the end of the paper, some challenges are summarized, such as “reduced screen sizes, limited audiovisual quality, virtual keyboarding and one-finger data entry, limited power and availability, limited nonverbal communications, message lengths, a lack of cultural context, and potentially limited social interaction” (Chinnery 2006). These drawbacks are worth of teachers’ considerations.