"All for One and One for All"- Creating a mobile learning net for ESP students' needs

Abstract

This paper looks into the ways ESP teachers have employed mobile learning scenarios in the teaching of English to Vocational Secondary school learners. Six teachers and 157 students participated in the research. Questionnaires and focus group discussions addressed to the students and semistructured interviews with the teachers were the research tools. The thematic analysis of the interviews revealed that teachers use mobile learning as a mode of instruction to minimize distance, fill learning gaps due to student absences, enhance the learners' ESP level and activate the weak or shy ones. The focus group discussions, thematically analyzed, and questionnaire answers, analyzed with the SPSS statistical package, have shown that students consider this mode of learning easy, interesting and useful. According to the results students' gender does not affect their decision except that of the appropriateness of the method whereas their age and working status affect certain answers with older working students' opinion outbalancing the younger non working students' views on the method.