LANGUAGE AND LEARNING APPLICATIONS: EFFECTIVENESS IN

MOBILE LEARNING
Axis: Mobile learning

1Amanda Maria Fróes Cruz

²Samira Cois Basi

New forms of learning bring issues of accessible education through mobile

applications, known as mobile-learning. According to Valadares and Murta
(2016), mobile-learning is a new form of teaching, which comes with an
interactive, multimodal and multimedia learning perspective. The authors explore
the idea of affordance - term created by psychologist James J. Gibson (1977) -,
which refers to portability, social interactivity, context sensitivity, connectivity, and
individuality in learning, with affordances “are the fundamental objects of
perception” (GAVER, 1991). According to Costa (2013), affordance is an
"interactive process between the individual and his/her environment, the
environment being a set of resources for actions available to the agent who needs
to realize the potentialities and initiate action" (p.11). Having this connectivity
characteristic, mobile learning is supposed to integrate digital technologies, and
learning occurs "through digital networks with the mobile communication devices
in order to produce educational experiences in any place and at any time”
(VALADARES; MURTA, 2016). According to Wexler et al (2008), apud Soad
(2017), mobile learning "allows individuals to be more productive when they
consume, create or interact with information, mediated by mobile or portable
devices, that accompany the individual on a regular basis from the beginning to
the end of tasks "(page 24). Therefore, from this perspective of the affordance
concept, mobile learning allows learning in diverse contexts through "social and
content interactions using personal electronic devices" Crompton (2013), apud
SOAD (2017, p. 24). With increasing access to mobile applications and the facility
of connecting these devices, the number of language learning applications has
increased and obtained more visibility into the new field of mobile learning. This
led to the questioning of whether foreign language teaching applications
contribute to English language learning. While undergraduate Languages
students, our objective is to observe the effectiveness of mobile-learning in
teaching. In this way, we delimit the research to the undergraduates of the 2nd
and 4th semester of Languages in Portuguese and English at the Pontifical
Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR) who are studying the discipline of
Discursive Practices of the English Language and use tools that help in the with
the first understanding of foreign language teaching and learning methodologies
that converge with other pedagogical disciplines of the course. After a

1 Undergraduate student of Languages (Portuguese and English) at PUCPR. Monitor of

Morphology and Syntax at PUCPR. E-mail: amanda.froes@outlook.com
² Undergraduate student of Languages (Portuguese and English) at PUCPR. Undergraduate in
Social Services and post-graduate degree in public management with emphasis on human rights
and citizenship at UEPG. E-mail: samirabasi@hotmail.com
bibliographical research to deepen the understanding about affordances and
mobile-learning, we use the methodology of qualitative field research to try to
understand the use of applications for learning English. Therefore, we applied a
questionnaire with fifty students, containing criteria based on Mesquita (2018)
with questions regarding: accessibility to the application (free or paid); if the
applications used present reading, writing, oral and listening skills; if there is
interactivity; if the levels of the course are adequate according to the phases
(basic, intermediate and advanced); if there is a logical sequence in learning; if
there are leveling exercises; online teachers are available to aid in learning; if the
exercises have grammatical explanations of the language; on the structuring of
the exercises; audiovisual aspects of the application; the operating system (IOS
and Android); if there is restriction of access to the contents; and what the reason
for the application search is and if, in the student's opinion, it has contributed to
the process of learning English. With this, we saw that most of the people
interviewed used a free application (96%); that 58% stated that the applications
are partly interactive, compared to 32% who say they are not and 10% with a
favorable opinion; 88% said that online teachers are not available to ask
questions. According to the graph below, 68% stated that there are no
grammatical explanations about language functioning, and 70% said that the
applications exploit in parts the four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Economides (2008), apud Soad (2017), reports that the pedagogical
characteristics of learning applications should: contain different teaching methods
and theories; validated and accurate content; to cover topics and ideas in
adequate quantity at each stage of learning; motivate the student and assist them
in their difficulties, and have tools for content design, student follow-up and
evaluation. The application was not considered fully effective in the language
learning process but was used as a complement to the studies. Finally, it is
interesting, since it is practical for downloading on the phone, with 86% of
students stating that the operating systems (Android and IOS) are compatible
with the applications. It is concluded that most of the Interviewed used the
applications to practice and improve the English language. Thus, this new form
of learning - mobile-learning - brings a new form of teaching, with greater student
autonomy. Applications have contributed to English language learning, but there
are issues that need to be improved in order to effectively English language
literacy.

Key-words: Mobile learning, Learning applications, Affordance.

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