mall illustration

Homework

MALL: Mobile-Assisted Language Learning

Cell phone apps can enrich and enliven the standard “Zoom classroom" that students are familiar with.

For many instructors (and students), “remote learning” is synonymous with “Zoom meeting” (or a similar video-conferencing platform) and a web-based LMS such as Canvas or Blackboard. Everyone is familiar with “Zoom fatigue” (Blum 2020) and we all know that staring at a computer screen can be frustratingly unproductive and unsatisfying.

But there are other options. Language educators are exploring “Mobile-Assisted Language Learning” (MALL), where students and instructors make use of cell phone apps to create and share a wide range of L2 content.

We know that cell phones are used more or less constantly as tools for communication. Why not deploy them in the service of communicative L2 instruction? In addition to familiar apps such as Duolingo or Quizlet, mobile devices offer an increasing array of options to “connect language learners (a) to their own environments and (b) to a much more diverse set of people, stories, and environments” (Guillén et al, p. 322).

Pegrum (2014), summarized in Guillén et al, suggests that MALL can be used for

A few suggestions:


References & Resources

Guillén, G., Sawin, T. and Avineri, N. (2020). Zooming out of the crisis: Language and human collaboration. Foreign Language Annals, 53, 320-328.

Blum, S. (2020, April 22). Why We're Exhausted by Zoom. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2020/04/22/professor‐explores‐why‐zoom‐classes‐deplete‐her‐energy‐opinion

O'Dowd, R., & O'Rourke, B. (2019). New developments in virtual exchange for foreign language education. Language Learning & Technology, 23(3), 1–7.

Pegrum, M. (2014). Mobile learning: Language, Literacies and Culture. Basingstoke, England: Palgrave Macmillan.

Vollmer Rivera, A. (2017). HelloTalk. Calico Journal, 34(30), 394-392.