REALIZING THE POTENTIAL OF MOBILE PHONE TECHNOLOGY FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING

Abstract

This paper focuses on the exploitation of mobile phone technology for the learning of foreign languages. It begins by considering the obstacles facing the effective use of mobile phone technology for language learning. In doing so, the paper describes four challenges that have to be overcome for mobile phone technology to become an effective pedagogical tool. Specifically: Intrusiveness, Cost, Practical technological constraints and Pedagogical methodologies. Having defined the issues that need to be addressed, the paper then proceeds to describe how these challenges have been met in the design of MobLang, an EU funded Lifelong Learning project.