An Investigation On The Use Of Mobile Devicesin English Majors’ Learning

The 21 st century is the knowledge-centered information era. With the rapid development of information media and wireless network technology,people’s lives and learning styles are undergoing tremendous changes. With the rapid expansion of functions of smart phones, media players, hand-held computers and other mobile devices, which provide mobile English learning basic conditions for undergraduates, the traditional way of learning has been unable to meet the learning needs of modern college students who want to learn EFL at any time and any place. Whether the learner is ready or not, likes it or not, mobile English learning has been quietly occurring around the university students.Mobile language learning is a combination of digital computer-assisted language learning and mobile learning. At present, researches on mobile assisted language learning mainly focus on the development of distance education and learning software platform as well as on the educational technology, and then there are also more researches in the learning mode and learning strategies. As a matter of fact, researches on how to apply the mobile language learning into practice and make some investigation on the basic mobile situation of college students are few. This paper is an investigation on the use of mobile devices in English majors’ learning. The participants are from the school of foreign languages of Inner Mongolia Normal University and questionnaires and interviews are used to conduct in-depth research to investigate 300 English majors’ basic conditions, attitudes, learning preferences and learning strategies of mobile English. At last, actor analysis and descriptive statistics of SPSS17.0 is used to analyze the data.Given the condition that many researches on the mobile learning are focused on non-English majors, the present research aims at studying the mobile-assisted language learning of English major students and answering the following questions: ⑴ What kind of M-learning conditions have the English majors been equipped with?(2) What attitudes do the students havetoward M-learning? ⑶ What are the students’ EFL learning preferences by using mobile devices? ⑷ What are the English major students’ main learning strategies under the MALL environment?The results show that:(1) The holding rate of mobile devices is higher,and college students have equipped with a better mobile English learning conditions.(2) Most of the college students hold a positive attitude toward mobile learning English.(3) Students prefer practicing listening ability and memorizing new words by using mobile devices.(4) Students can’t effectively use learning strategies in mobile English learning.This study is designed to find problems existing in the college students’ mobile English learning, and provide some advice to promote the development of mobile English learning and teaching in college English education. In addition, it also intends to give some effective advice to help English majors autonomous English learning effectively.