Mandarin students' perceptions of smartphone applications in Mandarin learning

Abstract

The brilliant advancement of mobile technologies provides a vivid instructional approach which suits the millennial students where learning happens ubiquitously. Therefore, awareness that mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) encourages personalized learning is the focus. Smartphone, the most excellent creation has impressed everyone, and it offers enormous potential for integration into language learning. Smartphone applications (SA) enable students to learn nowhere, in the class or out of the formal class. However, the way of students perceive SA as the Mandarin learning tools have not yet explored broadly. Thus, this preliminary study aims to examine Mandarin students’ perceptions of SA along with its usability, effectiveness, and satisfaction and the correlations of gender, course, and activities via SA against the items mentioned. A quantitative method was used through questionnaires distribution for data collection. 79 of undergraduates from an east coast university were chosen as the respondents to answer the survey. The survey was conducted in the 10th week of a 14 weeks Mandarin course. The collected data were then analysed using SPSS for the descriptive statistics. Two types of smartphone applications included dictionary based and teaching and learning based were identified. The statistics show that all the respondents consented that learning Mandarin via SA has influenced their language performance; task accomplishment and personal study positively. In addition, the students were engaging, satisfied and willing to continue using smartphones in their study. All in all, SA is a potential tool for MALL. However, students need guidance in ensuring the productiveness of SA in MALL.