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Mobile Language Learning

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I just read an article that lead me on a path to download some new apps. The author's goal was to find out how language learners use and perceive mobile phones for education. He carried out a small-scale case study with learners of English in Hong Kong. What he discovered was that language learning was occurring through referential tools (translators, dictionaries) as well as social networking tools.
This was specifically for English, so I could see how incidental learning was easier since a vast majority of the applications they wanted to use were in English or easier to use English language to communicate. In terms of incidental learning for other languages, I don't believe there's enough out there to make this happen.
I was interested to see the kinds of applications they were using and how it may be useful for the types of things we would like to develop. I downloaded the MyWordBook application and really liked how you could add vocabulary words, definition, sentence example, image, and audio recording. Then you could use the words you enter and create practice games. Pretty intuitive and simple.

Article: http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/693/are-smartphones-useful-for-vocabulary-learning-an-appraisal (have to create an account to view the whole thing or I have a pdf if anyone wants it)

Comments

Liko said…
Aloha e Christy, I am interested in the PDF. Mahalo!
July 10, 2011 at 10:39 AM
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