Developing Speaking Skill of Iranian EFL Learners through Mobile Applications

Rapid development of information technologies and specifically smart phone-based applications has inspired foreign language teachers to make use of that widespread technology for educational purposes. The current study investigated the effect of a mobile application called Busuu on elementary EFL learners’ oral performance. Fifty adult Iranian EFL learners who were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control group participated in this 12-week study. The data collected through the pretest and the posttest were analyzed using paired sample t-tests and independent sample t-tests. Findings showed that the experimental group students significantly outperformed their control group in EFL speaking ability. Furthermore, the study indicated that the use of Busuu mobile application had positive impact on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and interactive communication subcomponents of speaking ability with the highest effects on pronunciation and interactive communication and the lowest impacts on vocabulary and grammar. On the whole, the study suggested that mobile-assisted language learning is an advantageous supplementary source for conventional classroom teaching

Keywords:

CALL (Computer-assisted language learning) , MALL (Mobile-assisted language learning) , Mobile applications , Speaking ability , EFL (English as a foreign language) learners