المستخلص: |
Widespread use of mobile and wireless devices in education has led to revolutionary changes in the way teachers teach and learners learn. Mobile phones are viewed as potentially useful tools for learning because of their widespread use. However, students’ personal use of mobile phones and their apps for learning benefit is still open to research. The impact of using mobile dictionaries on language learning has therefore been investigated in this study. Thirty-four lower-intermediate language learners participated in a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study. Based on their choice of working with a mobile or printed dictionary for their language course, they were divided into two groups of 17 in each group. During the course, an experimental group used a dictionary that they had installed on their cell phones to conduct all of their activities. In the meantime, the control group used a print version of the same dictionary. A teacher-made achievement test was used as the pre- and post-test. The results demonstrated that, when controlling for the ability to communicate at a low level, the exploratory group performed better than the control group in the posttest. The results of this study reinforce the crucial role played by mobile phones in enabling teaching to be delivered anywhere at any time.
|