Adoption of mobile technology for language learning: Teacher attitudes and challenges

Adoption of mobile technology for language learning: Teacher attitudes and challenges. By Yaming Tai & Yu_Liang Ting

The article explores teachers attitudes toward using mobile technology and the challenges which could be faced. The subjects of the study are six female pre-service teachers who they volunteered for this study. Firstly, those teachers were introduced to a mobile device which has the following features: 1) mobile MSN with full keyboard input, 2)  POP_ email, 3)  Internet Browsing + RSS news feeds, 4) MP3 player, and 5) basic mobile phone functions of voice and SMS. Then, the pre-service teachers were questioned on their attitude toward the device, and their propensity to innovate the device. Secondly, they spent two months to familiarize themselves with the device and adopt the mobile technology into their EFL curriculum. Finally, the pre-service teachers were questioned again about their attitude toward the device and their propensity. The result shows an improvement of teachers attitude towards using mobile technology and some challenges such as the changing role of the mobile device, technical difficulties, and pedagogical potential. The study suggests that if teachers want to gain better understanding about  the use of technology in the educational field they should experience authentic tasks.

Here is its link: http://journal.jaltcall.org/articles/7_1_Tai.pdf