My experience of using mobile assisted language tasks with Arbaminch secondary school students.

I delivered reading and speaking activities for grade eleven students of Arbaminch secondary and preparatory school. The students were three in number.Unfortunetely, three of them were males. The activities were selected from different sources. The reading activity was selected from grade eleven English textbook unit two, page 44-45.But the listening text was selected from VOA Special English Agriculture Report (www.unsv.com/voanews/specialenglish. Then after, I translated both activities to the students mobile.

At the very beginning when I saw them the soft copy of their textbook, they were surprised and interested to do the activities. They completed the activities and returned back the answer sheet early in the morning after one day.

When I mark their reading activity task, they did all the activities well. It implies that they read and comprehend the passage. In another meaning using mobile phones to read passage do not hinder the students understanding.

Similarly, they did the listening activity in a very good way. Three of them were answered all the questions correctly. As they told me that they listen the speech several times. They make a pause and listen again when they want to check pronunciations’. I think this is why they answered all the questions correctly.

Finally, the students told me their perceptions about mobile assisted language learning. According to their perception mobile assisted language learning can make their learning easy. They argue that if they get a soft copy of all the books, they can use all the books everywhere they go. In addition to this, they think that mobile is less in size and weight. For this reason, they can have hundreds of books in their pocket.

On the other hand, they perceive that mobile assisted language learning will have also its own limitations. They argue that reading a long passage using mobile might be difficult, because the screen of mobile is smaller than textbooks. In addition to this, they worry that all students cannot buy such expensive mobiles. Thus, they perceive that variation in their economy can make difference in their performance.

Finally, they suggested that if remedial actions will be given for the above weak sides, mobile assisted language learning can make students advantageous. However there are some limitations in the implementation of mobile assisted language learning, the students are eager and motivated to be part of this technology.

Personally, I also expect, this method will add value for language classes. But I think that if we directly going to implement this method, things may not go as the way we want. The challenges that the students suggest should be under consider. However the implementation will face challenges, we can start introducing the method now. To do so, I would like to recommend that the teachers training institutions, the government officials and the school administrative bodies should walk a long journey.

Firstly, teachers training institutions should revise their training system in line with the method of implementing mobile assisted language learning. Secondly, the government officials should facilitate capacity building trainings for the teachers. Finally, the school administrative bodies should also play a significant role by providing facilities such as internet accesses, language laboratories with equipments and the like.