Improving English as a foreign language–learning performance using mobile devices in unfamiliar environments

Abstract

In this study, the participants learned English as a foreign language (EFL) in the classroom and then worked on five learning tasks to apply their newly learned knowledge to unfamiliar environments. The participants took photos of people, objects, situations or scenarios and described them in detail using a mobile learning system. Familiarization strategies were developed for the participants to increase their knowledge of strange environments. We aimed to test the effectiveness of the familiarization strategies on learning performance in the mobile-assisted language-learning context. To this end, an experiment was carried out with fifty participants who were assigned either to the experimental or control groups. The participants in the former used the familiarization strategies, whereas the participants in the latter did not. We compared the learning performance of the participants in the two groups based on the scores of pre- and posttests with phrase translation, sentence translation and writing items. We also compared the EFL writing quality of the two groups on five tasks with respect to the amount, vocabulary, grammar, content, origination and creativity dimensions. The results of the pre/posttest comparison showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group on the writing item only. The results showed that the writing quality of the experimental group on the five tasks was significantly better than that of the control group in all of the six dimensions. In addition, all of the participants had positive perceptions of the usefulness of our learning system to assist their EFL learning in unfamiliar environments. The results suggest that familiarization strategies can significantly improve EFL learning performance in unfamiliar environments.

Keywords:

• EFL
• familiarization strategies
• mobile learning
• unfamiliar environment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rustam Shadiev

Dr. Rustam Shadiev is a professor at the School of Education Science, Nanjing Normal University (PRC) and a distinguished professor of Jiangsu province (PRC). He is also a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Senior Member of IEEE. His research interest includes advanced learning technologies to support language learning and cross-cultural education.

Meng-ke Yang

Miss Meng-ke Yang is a teacher of information technology at Shengli No.1 Middle School of Dongying (PRC). Her research interest covers technology-assisted language learning.

Barry Lee Reynolds

Dr. Barry Lee Reynolds is an Assistant Professor of English Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Macau. He is interested in the areas of Vocabulary Acquisition, Second Language Literacy Education, and Computer Assisted Language Learning.

Wu-Yuin Hwang

Dr. Wu-Yuin Hwang is a distinguished professor at the Graduate Institute of Network Learning Technology, National Central University, Taiwan. His research interests include computer assisted language learning, HCI and knowledge construction.