Teachers using mobile devices to receive immediate feedback and improve learners' language learning

Abstract

When teaching phonology in English language classrooms, teachers face three distinct challenges. The first challenge depends on the teacher's skills and training to be able to recognise learners' mistakes in order to provide them with appropriate feedback. The second challenge is how to support individual learners, who are at different levels of competence within the group, effectively. Lastly, the third challenge is connected with spending class time more effectively and providing customised, individual feedback to large numbers of learners in a timely manner. This study explored the usefulness of a voice recognition App, Dragon Dictation, which is freely available on mobile phones. Instead of teachers seeing mobile phones in the classroom as a threat, the study explored their benefits as a teaching and learning tool. The linguistic and affective usefulness for learners is reported as well as the feedback this App may provide for teachers on the effectiveness of the chosen method of instruction in class, which was also explored.