An Empirical Study Of Mobile-assisted English Vocabulary Learning

From computer-assisted language learning to mobile-assisted language learning, foreign language learning approaches are undergoing evolutions. The study of mobileassisted language learning started from Stanford University in the U.S. in 2000, which concerned using mobile phones to teach Spanish vocabulary through e-mail. Since then, the effectiveness of mobile-assisted language learning has been a focused issue for language researchers. In previous studies, information carriers including E-mail, SMS(Short Message Services) and web browsering which are utilized on mobile devices such as mobile phones, personal tablets and portable multi-media players have been adopted to exam the effectiveness of mobile-assisted language learning. Some of them have proved the effectiveness of mobile-assisted language learning while other studies show negative results. For mobile-assisted vocabulary learning in particular, the related researches which are conducted under Chinese EFL condition have not caused enough attention. Moreover, there are few studies utilizing mobile phone learning applications as the carrier.As to this study, after the initial investigation of the status quo of mobile-assisted language learning of college English learners, the effectiveness of mobile-assisted language learning for vocabulary is detected with the comparison of traditional paperassisted vocabulary learning based on the theory of constructivism. Meanwhile, the possible effects from the perspective of gender, vocabulary size, and learning frequency on mobile-assisted English vocabulary learning are also checked.245 second-year non-English majors in Southwest University filled in the mobileassisted language learning questionnaire. The subjects were around 20 years old. They majored in education, horticulture, mathematics and electronic and information technology. This questionnaire aimed to survey the college students’ attitudes towards English learning and teaching, their experience of mobile-assisted language learning and the feasibility of mobile-assisted language learning to college English learning. The results showed that college English learning processes were often conducted with less interaction between the teacher and students and considerable amount of college English learners were not satisfied with the current English teaching methods and learning materials. For mobile-assisted language learning, the majority of the subjects showed great interest. They believed that the mobile-assisted language learning could enhance the interaction between teachers and students and improve the effectiveness of language learning, especially for vocabulary. Finally, it was worth pointing out that over half of the subjects admitted the significant role of mobile-assisted language learning, but also acknowledged the irreplaceable status of traditional language learning methods. They stated that mobile-assisted language learning was an important subsidiary tool for language learning.From those who had filled in the questionnaire, the author randomly selected 62 subjects for the mobile-assisted language learning experiment. At the beginning of the experiment, the subjects’ English proficiency was analyzed based on their final test scores in the last semester(the first semester of a academic year in 2015). Result showed that there was no significant difference in English proficiency between the two classes. Meanwhile, the target words were also selected through careful filtration. In order to motivate the subjects, quite amount of words were randomly extracted from their current college English textbook in last two chapters. The subjects were required to complete a vocabulary checklist based on the selected words. Ultimately, 21 words were determined as the final target words. Then the subjects were randomly arranged into two groups. One was the experimental group and the other was control group. Each group had 31 subjects scattered into two natural classes taught by the same teacher of the English language. Two groups were supposed to acquire the target vocabulary through two different ways in 4 weeks. The experimental group would learn the words through mobile phone application while the control group through the paper-printed materials. The author and the class teacher were responsible for the distribution of the vocabulary learning materials. The learning materials were completely adopted from the Youdao dictionary application. Vocabulary knowledge such as pronunciation, Chinese definition and relevant sentence examples were presented in the material. Moreover, during the experiment, the experimental group was also allocated into 5 sub-groups in the instant communication software QQ, which was supposed to encourage learning interaction among the subjects, and facilitate their self-construction of the vocabulary knowledge.After four weeks of vocabulary learning, two posttests including immediate and delayed posttest based on the target vocabulary were conducted. As to the immediate posttest, the mean score of control group was much higher than that of the experimental group(MCG≈62.48, MEG≈55.84). However, as for the results of the independent sample T-test, there was no significant difference between them(p=0.058> 0.01). In the delay posttest, the mean score of the control group was still higher than that of the experimental group(MCG≈53.87, MEG≈52.84), but the mean difference was narrowed considerably. With the result of the independent sample T-test, no significant difference can be detected between the two groups(p= 0.68> 0.01). Therefore, the conclusion is that the mobile-assisted English vocabulary learning does not show obvious advantage than traditional paper-assisted vocabulary learning.The correlation analysis was also conducted to explore the respective correlations of gender, vocabulary size and learning frequency with mobile-assisted vocabulary learning effect. The results show that learning frequency and vocabulary size are both positively correlated with the learning results, but gender has been proved as an unrelated factor for it.In summary, compared with the traditional paper-assisted vocabulary learning, the results indicate that mobile-assisted language learning dose not show better learning effect. However, most of the non-English majors take positive attitudes toward mobileassisted language learning, mobile vocabulary learning in particular. The mobileassisted language learning owes high feasibility in College English teaching. Therefore, mobile-assisted language learning has the potential to be a supporting and attracting learning tool for language learning. It is expected that this study can present pedagogical implications for college English teaching and learning.