Listening comprehension of English second language with mobile devices

• Authors: Mahieddine Djoudi
• Venue: Journal of Mobile Multimedia
• Year: 2006

The use of the mobile devices in language learning has been developed at very high speed these last years. Thus, we are witnessing many research and development projects, methodologies, and scientific publications. However, the interest in research related to listening comprehension competence remains relatively low. In this paper, we propose a simple and original approach, which aims to use mobile devices for listening comprehension of foreign language especially English Second Language for French learners. This approach is based on an easy to use technology that makes it possible for learners to work, anywhere and at their own rhythm, the listening comprehension of a foreign language. With the mobile MP3 player, the learner can carry a worth of English lessons, practicing pronunciation and conversation drills with the audio tracks. He can download from web based mobile-learning environment (named Nomad's Lang) the MP3 audio tracks and written lessons (created par teachers) and read them on any mobile device (PDA, Pocket PC or Laptops, etc.). The paper starts with the summary of mobile devices, language skills and listening comprehension. It then highlights our approach of the use of mobile devices for learning English second language. Finally a learner evaluation is performed. The paper ends with the discussion of results and conclusion