Attitude towards the use of mobile devices for the practice of oral skills in English

Blanca García Riaza & Ana Iglesias Rodríguez
ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE USE OF MOBILE DEVICES FOR THE PRACTICE OF ORAL SKILLS IN ENGLISH
García Riaza, B. & Iglesias Rodríguez, A. E.U. de Educación y Turismo de Ávila (Universidad de Salamanca) E-mail: bgr@usal.es & anaiglesias@usal.es 1-3 October, 2014

INTRODUCTION
Mobile devices have taken an increasingly prominent role in society in recent years.
Obvious and playful communicative function of these resources – BUT- we must not forget the educational achievement we can get from them.
Smartphones, tablets and notebooks have become everyday items with which the user fills in free time.

Daily time slots: on the way home, between classes, etc.  exploited as practice times to improve proficiency in foreign languages using applications (Apps)
Ubiquity of Apps: content covered in the classroom or practice, in this case, a language autonomously delivering a dynamic and active students in their own learning process role. Any place, any time: No time and place constraints.
INTRODUCTION

The integration of mobile devices in learning processes  physical and virtual environments complement each other, boost content acquisition and become an attractive informal learning alternative.
Asensio, M. 2001
Mobile technologies…
Favor the interactivity between learners and knowledge objects
Are relatively flexible to access and use in terms of time and place
Adapt to the rhythms of study and individual progress; and
Present an enormous amount and variety of resources and tools that enable the implementation of different communication skills needed to master a foreign language, similar to how we use it in the real world in the language.
Bárcena, E. 2011
INTRODUCTION

Mobile Learning  use of mobile devices in teaching and learning practices of almost any subject or topic of interest.
Language learning through the use of these mobile tools is gaining a special boom  need to stay updated on the skills demanded by society in general and the labor market in particular.
INTRODUCTION

•ATLAS Research Group 
INTRODUCTION
SO-CALL-ME Project (Social Ontology-driven Cognitive Augmented Language Learning Mobile Environment, Ref. FFI 2011-29829) . UNED, Complutense University of Madrid, University of Salamanca. 2011-2015
•Mobile devices to promote and enhance the practice of oral skills in English.

•Among the resources that have been developed for the practice of these skills is ANT (Audio News Trainer) App.
INTRODUCTION

PURPOSE OF THE RESEARCH
- Departure point: leading role that ICTs have achieved  devices to assist the learning processes + elements to enhance an ubiquitous and lifelong learning of languages at tertiary level.
- General objective: Get to know the habits of students regarding the use of mobile devices and their expectations towards a pedagogical use of these gadgets to learn English.

OBJECTIVES
Contribute to making mobile devices an autonomous learning resource in higher education in Spain.
Know the opinion of students on the use of mobile apps to boost their English learning process.
Get data that allow us to develop and design better apps in the near future, and/or adapt them to the needs of its users.
Try to increase motivation among students towards the practice of language skills outside the clasroom.
Provide students with the awaremess that mobile apps can help them in their learning processes as well as with a critical perception to assess them.

METODOLOGY
The working methodology followed in this project has three main processes:
Plan: Collectively planned each of the steps, detailing specific actions to be carried out.
Implement: Execution of the different activities planned (training of students, data collection, etc..).
Measure: Analysis of the data obtained and measure the degree of student satisfaction with the process and the degree of compliance with expectations.

RESOURCES
The material resources used to accomplish this project have been:
Studium: Moodle platform at the University of Salamanca
Google Drive utilities: questionnaires and data analysis.
The human resources used to accomplish this project have been:
Students volunteering from different subjects from the Degrees in Primary Education Teaching / English Studies/ Tourism at UNED and USAL.

DATA ANALYSIS
1st Item. Students responded to the majority way in the early days in which access to it is opened, but all the time it has been open, they have continued access and responses.
Temporal evolution of responses from participating students.
- Quantitative + qualitative analysis - Extraction of data from each item form

DATA ANALYSIS
Subjects in which students are enrolled
Gender of the students polled

DATA ANALYSIS
Mobile devices most frequently used
Time devoted to the use of mobile devices

DATA ANALYSIS
Places where mobile devices are most frequently used
Use of mobile devices

DATA ANALYSIS
Usage of a mobile app for learning purposes
Usage of a mobile app to earn English
Blanca García Riaza & ana Iglesias Rodríguez

DATA ANALYSIS
Expectations about the use of a mobile app to learn English
English skills that they would like to practice using a mobile app
Blanca García Riaza & ana Iglesias Rodríguez

CONCLUSIONS
DATUM. Devices from which our students mostly use applications: phones with Android operating system, followed by tablets from Apple.
CONCLUSION: This fact makes us guide the design of future applications to the two operating systems, with special attention to the specifications of download and use on every operating system.
DATUM. These devices are generally used between one and three hours, although there are a remarkable group of students who manifest use less than an hour a day.
CONCLUSION: We believe it is more convenient to create applications involving limited time use, never beyond the total time of use of the devices, equally distributed between web browsing, email checking and using social networks.

CONCLUSIONS
DATUM. A large proportion of students use mobile devices at home and/or in means of transport
CONCLUSION: New learning places (informal learning), which allow greater flexibility in the classroom, key data that reinforces the need for further research in this field.
DATUM. 60% of students said to have already used mobile applications for educational purposes.
CONCLUSION: Students have taken and internalized in their lives the role of the devices as teaching agents, they seek and consume applications that pursue this end. Many of them, however, have not yet used the devices to learn English, but clearly expressed their high expectations about practicing or improving their English by using mobile applications.

CONCLUSIONS
DATUM. Most of the students would like to use mobile applications to practice Listening activities (oral reception), followed by students who are attracted to the idea of conducting activities Speaking (oral production),
This data is highly representative for the project, and that he confirmed the preference of students towards oral skills, which field to deepen our research and teaching applications.
 The project is now developing a second stage, based on the findings of the research here presented, oriented towards the obtention of new data and the design of apps that meet the student’s needs.

ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE USE OF MOBILE DEVICES FOR THE PRACTICE OF ORAL SKILLS IN ENGLISH
October, 1-3, 2014
García Riaza, B. & Iglesias Rodríguez, A.
E.U. de Educación y Turismo de Ávila (Universidad de Salamanca)
E-mail: bgr@usal.es & anaiglesias@usal.es

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