Learning English in an Authentic Mobile Environment

摘要

This research reports a proposal for learning English in an Authentic Mobile Environment. We used discourse analysis to analyze the perceptions of the students regarding their English learning using mobile phones. Our learning tool is based on the new paradigm well-known as "Edutainment" using mobile technologies. The developed tool moves the issue of education to the context of entertainment. This paradigm ensures that education is seen as an activity that provides entertainment and excitement pleasure. This characteristic gives to lifelong learning an added value. Considering that the mobile-phone has had a boom in the last years and that a lot of people already have mobile telephones (approximately 3.5 billions), we have developed a system that makes lifelong learning something natural and effective for education in all fields of development. This obeys to that the new information technology can help us to achieve our perspectives of growth. This system provides to user with a permanent learning in anytime, anywhere and any device (PDA's, cell-phone, NDS, etc.). The English learning was enabled by the use of mobile phones and allowed us to detect some features that benefit learning in these contexts: (1) exploring English independently (with vocabulary, see Fig. 2) (2) learning English through collaboration and team work (through Karaoke); (3) learning English in a societal and humanistic environment (through videos, Fig. 1) (4) learning English in authentic real life situations (5) learning English easily and efficiently (mobile device) (6) learning English (7) learning English fun and enjoyable (through the hangman game). This indicates that English education could benefit from utilizing these new technological tools.