TECHNOLOGY MATTERS
Substitute or redefine?
Nicky Hockly looks at mobile learning in and out of class.
Introduction
In my first article in this series, I looked
at some of the bigger picture questions
that we teachers need to ask ourselves
in order to implement mobile learning
in our various contexts. I also pointed
out that mobile learning does not only
mean ‘apps’. We can use mobile devices
to consume specially developed content
(e.g. via apps), but we can also use these
devices to support language production.
After all, to learn a language we need
exposure to a lot of rich and varied
content but we also need opportunities
to produce language. Mobile devices
offer us both of these possibilities.
With this in mind, it is much easier
to envisage using mobile devices
across a variety of contexts – both
inside the classroom in more ‘formal’
learning contexts, as well as outside
the classroom in ‘informal’ learning
contexts. If the clichéd view of
mLearning consists of learners accessing
language learning apps while on the
bus, we can now imagine learners using
mobile devices within the classroom to
create and produce their own content.
In this article we look at each of these
two scenarios in a little more depth.
Firstly, we look at how learners can
“ If the clichéd view of mLearning consists of
learners accessing language learning apps while
on the bus, we can now imagine learners using
mobile devices within the classroom to create
and produce their own content.
40 Modern English Teacher Volume 21 No. 3
indeed use their devices to access
mobile learning content outside of the
classroom for independent study. Then
we look at how we might bring these
devices into the classroom, and how
this might support learning as well.
And we will see that there is often an
overlap, with learners creating content
outside of the classroom for use inside
the classroom, and vice versa. If we
centre our attention on the wide range
of options that mobile devices provide
learners with, the distinction between
mLearning inside versus outside the
classroom becomes more blurred.
And this is one of the main attractions
of mobile learning – the mobility
of the learner. According to Agnes
Kukulska-Hulme (2010) this mobility
‘denotes not just physical mobility but
the opportunity to overcome physical
constraints by having access to people
and digital learning resources, regardless
of place and time’.
Outside the classroom
Mobile learning is still relatively new
in our profession. In 2009 leading
institutions such as the British Council
started to release EFL apps (applications
or programs) for mobile devices,
especially for the iPhone and Android
”
operating systems. These free apps
include vocabulary games such as ‘60
Second Word Challenge’, ‘Wordshake’
and ‘MyWordBook’, grammar apps
such as ‘Johnny Grammar’s Quizmaster’
and ‘LearnEnglish Grammar’, a
pronunciation app (´Sounds Right’),
and a range of podcasts. A list of
currently available British Council apps
can be found on their website: http://
learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/
mobile-learning.
Publishers then followed suit, and apps
as new coursebook peripherals began
to make an appearance . Macmillan’s
‘Business Result podcasts’, or Pearson’s
‘Skill pills’ are examples of this.
Dictionaries, and popular grammar
practice books such as Murphy’s ‘English
Grammar in Use’ (Cambridge University
Press), are also available as apps.
The upshot is an ever-growing
range of EFL apps, from those that
provide practice in specific areas
such as vocabulary, pronunciation
or grammar, to courseware in app
format. For a review of EFL apps (for
iOS and Android), see http://www.
emoderationskills.com/?p=134.
Just how engaging or innovative
some of these apps are is debatable.
Nevertheless, it does make sense for
the English language teacher to let his
or her learners know about the various
apps that are available. Some learners
will indeed find grammar apps and
the like engaging. If having this kind
of language practice available at their
fingertips is motivating for a particular
learner, then that can only be a good
thing. And this material is a clear
candidate for informal and independent
study outside of the classroom.
However, there is a world of apps
beyond those specially designed for
EFL, and these too can be harnessed by
the English language teacher both in
and outside of the classroom. Drawing
 TECHNOLOGY MATTERS

or mind-mapping apps can be used SMS Reading an Internet-enabled mobile phone.

by learners to produce summaries or
schemas in or out of class. Photo apps
can be used to photograph English
words in the environment (e.g. in
advertisements, signs, menus or movie
posters) and learners can bring these
to class as discussion prompts. Audio
apps (or video recording) can be used
to record independent pronunciation
practice or for rehearsing presentations.
Inside the classroom
What about bringing elements of
mobile learning into the classroom
itself? There are a number of ways
to start doing so, and below are five
suggestions, starting from simple one-
off activities to more complex project
work. Each of these suggestions works
with mobile phones, from low-end
phones to more sophisticated smart
phones.
Show and tell
Start simple, start small and start
without mobile devices at all. Let
learners talk about their mobile phones,
and what they use them for. Many of us
develop deep emotional attachments to
our phones, and love showing or telling
others about them. See for example
a lesson plan introducing the topic of
mobile phones from Jo Budden on the
British Council Teach English website:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/
language-assistant/essential-uk/mobile-
phones. An activity like this can be
the first step in starting to use mobile
devices regularly in class.
Engage reluctant low-level readers by
sending them simple, short, serialised
stories via daily SMS messages. These
short texts can be sent during class
time, and then further activities
devised around the content. If your
phone is wifi enabled, use a free
group messaging app such as gText
(https://www.gtext.com) to avoid SMS
costs. See Carol Rainbow’s account of
how she carried out an SMS reading
project with young learners: http://
carol-carolrb.blogspot.com.es/2011/04/
mlearning-history-sms-project.html. In
this particular project a class set of low
cost mobile phones was procured for
the learners, and parental permission
was sought to send the learners regular
messages to develop their reading skills.
Recording
Get learners to audio and/or video
record themselves in pairs while
carrying out a speaking task in class.
Let the learners use this to monitor and
provide feedback on their own speaking
performances. These recordings don’t
need to be shown to anyone else if
they are for rehearsal and analysis by
the learners themselves. Learners can
also record themselves giving more
polished presentations, which then can
be uploaded to a blog or website to be
shared more widely. Posterous (https://
posterous.com/) is a free website that
enables learners to quickly and easily
upload audio or video files directly from
Creating a treasure hunt
Get learners creating treasure hunts for
each other using location-based quiz
apps on smart phones. Read about Anne
Fox’s local history treasure hunt project
for groups of young learners on mobile
devices in Denmark (http://annefox.
eu/2011/11/21/the-history-game-
part-2/). Anne had her learners work
in small groups to take photos of key
historical landmarks in her town, and to
create multimedia quiz questions about
these landmarks, for other groups.
The quiz questions required images,
sound, video and/or text answers.
Quiz questions were activated by
learners actually visiting the landmarks.
Classroom time was spent on preparing
the treasure hunt routes and questions.
The quizzes were taken by the learners
outside of the classroom – they needed
to physically visit each landmark to be
able to answer a question.
You can download Anne’s lesson plan
for this project here: http://www.
theconsultants-e.com/resources/lessons/
lessonrepository/mlearningplans.aspx.
Evaluating mobile
activities
There have been a number of mobile
learning frameworks proposed, and
perhaps the most useful for our
purposes is the SAMR model by Ruben
Puentedura (http://www.hippasus.com/
rrpweblog/archives/000049.html):

Texting
Carry out short focused classroom
activities in which learners use the
texting or note-taking features of their
mobile phones. Here are a couple of
examples:
• Give learners a short dictation to
take on their phones.
• Send your learners a few SMS
message in text speak (or put them
on the board). In small groups
learners type the same messages
in standard English, and text these
messages back to you.
• In small groups get your learners
to create short chain stories using a
note-taking app.
(Image from JISC Mobile Learning Infokit: 78)

Volume 21 No. 3 www.onlineMET.com 41

 TECHNOLOGY MATTERS
The SAMR model is essentially a
taxonomy of mobile task types that can
help us identify just how innovative
our use of mobile technology is for a
specific task. If we only encourage our
learners to use mobile apps such as
dictionaries, flashcards or grammar
activities, we are clearly restricting
the use of mobile technologies to the
‘Substitution’ level. Flashcard apps
replace paper flashcards, grammar apps
replace print grammar practice books,
and pronunciation apps replace audio
CDs. Although the mobile technology
may allow some bells and whistles to be
added to traditional resources in these
cases (such as flashcards in which you
can check the pronunciation of words),
we are essentially seeing the same
content and approaches we have had
for decades. This is fine, but we don’t
want to lose sight of the other levels
in the SAMR model – which we all too
often do in our tendency to believe that
mobile learning = apps.
From Substitution to
Augmentation
Let’s look again at our five classroom
examples above. We see that example 2
(Texting) is an example of ‘Substitution’
if learners take down a dictation from
the teacher, with the text or note-taking
feature of a mobile phone simply
substituting pen and paper. However,
if learners create a text chain story
and then upload it to a Posterous blog
for other classes (or parents) to access
and comment on, then we see that
the mobile technology has provided
‘functional improvement’ by allowing
the learners’ work to be shared much
more easily with a wider audience. The
text chain story, then, is an example
of an activity that uses the available
technology for ‘Augmentation’, rather
than simply ‘Substitution’. In both
cases, we see that mobile technology
enhances the activity – even if only
by providing an alternative and
original way of carrying out a standard
dictation, which might increase student
motivation.
Modification
Tasks which falls within Puentedura’s
‘Modifications’ section are our examples
3 (SMS Reading) and 4 (Recording). The
SMS Reading activity requires us to
42 Modern English Teacher Volume 21 No. 3
modify or create short texts which are Although many of our learners have
delivered individually to learners via mobile devices, there are still many
SMS, at regular intervals during a day, institutions that prohibit their use. And
and over a period of several weeks. It’s there are also still plenty of teachers
difficult to envisage carrying out such who are not convinced that using
a project effectively without mobile mobile devices is worthwhile, or brings
technology in this case. anything to the learning process. The
obstacles and caveats to mobile learning
In our Recoding example, the mobile will be examined in my next article in
technology allows learners to make the series.
individual recordings (audio or video)
of their language output quickly and
easily, and to examine this immediately
REFERENCES
and privately in situ. They can delete
Kukulska-Hulme, Agnes. (2010) Mobile
and re-record as often as they like,
learning as a catalyst for change In:
until they are happy with the results,
Open Learning Vol. 25/3, pp.181-185
which then can be shared with a
wider audience online. In the case of Puentedura, Ruben. (2010) Accessed at:
publicly sharing their recordings, the http://www.hippasus.com/rrpweblog/
affordances of mobile technology allow archives/000049.html
learners to easily rehearse time and
JISC Mobile Learning Infokit.
again, and class time can effectively
(2012) Accessed at: https://
be apportioned for this, with no loss
mobilelearninginfokit.pbworks.com/w/
in motivation for learners, and with
page/41122430/Home
the teacher providing feedback on
performances until the final take
is ready for sharing. Here we see a
Nicky Hockly
task being redesigned to include a
substantial amount of time for output
including rehearsal and repetition,
something teachers are often reluctant
to spend much class time on, but an
important part of language learning.
Thus in examples 3 and 4 we have
moved from ‘enhancement’ of
traditional tasks, to ‘transformation’ of
tasks enabled by (mobile) technology.
Redefinition Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFL
And finally, our example 5 (Treasure teaching and teacher training since
hunt) is a good example of 1987. She is Director of Pedagogy
‘Redefinition’. Here mobile technology of The Consultants-E, an online
enables learners to create and complete teacher training and development
tasks previously unimaginable before consultancy (www.theconsultants-e.
the advent of GPS-enabled devices. com). She is co-author of How to
Teach English with Technology,
The SAMR framework can provide a
Learning English as a Foreign Language
useful yardstick for teachers when
for Dummies, and Teaching Online.
starting to use mobile devices in the
She is currently working on a new
classroom. It can help us to gauge
book Digital Literacies (forthcoming
to what extent we are using all the
2012), and recently produced her
affordances of mobile technology, or to
first e-book: Webinars: A Cookbook
what extent we are simply substituting for Educators (http://the-round.
one medium (e.g. pen and paper) for com). Nicky maintains a blog at
another (note-taking apps). Starting www.emoderationskills.com, and The
off with activities that focus more on Consultants-E regularly run an online
substitution is a good way to start using teacher training course on mobile
mobile devices for teachers, but ideally learning: “mLearning in Practice”.
one would want to include activities for
all stages of the SAMR model over time.