Mobile Apps for Learning Vocabulary: Categories, Evaluation and Design Criteria for Teachers and Developers

Abstract

In this article the authors discuss the potential for mobile devices, mainly smartphones and tablets, to be used for language learning, offering frameworks for users to apply, including the categorisation of the different contexts and applications apps. They suggest critical success factors, including the importance of the user interface design and a taxonomy of interactivity and mobile "affordances" for publishers, developers, and users to consider when either evaluating existing apps, or developing their own mobile learning materials. The authors illustrate how these frameworks and taxonomies can work by applying them to the area of vocabulary learning. The article includes two case studies of app development projects in which one of the authors has had direct involvement to explore the relative benefits and dis-benefits of re-versioning existing CDROM-based materials against developing an entirely new mobile learning app. Finally, they discuss the potential chasm between those interested in the potential of mobile language learning, including developers with insufficient knowledge of pedagogy, and language teachers who know about pedagogy, but have little interest in mobile learning. The article concludes with recommendations about how to overcome this divide with suggestions on how developers could make their language learning apps more pedagogically useful.