Tablets for informal language learning: Student usage and attitudes

Abstract

Mobile-assisted language learning (MALL), a relatively new area of CALL inquiry, is gaining more and more attention from language educators with the development of new mobile devices. Tablet computers—featuring high mobility, convenient network connectivity, and smart application extendibility—are part of a wave of the latest mobile inventions; how these new mobile devices enhance MALL and how students perceive them as a language learning tool have yet to be broadly explored. This action research project sought to investigate how students used tablet computers to learn English in informal settings outside of class and how to foster more effective usage of the tablet for independent language learning. The study shows that tablet computers are ideal tools for creating an interactive, collaborative, and ubiquitous environment for language learning, provided that the technological affordances of the device have been fully explored with the students. This investigation also reveals that students have a generally favorable attitude towards the usability, effectiveness, and satisfaction of tablet computers for MALL.