| Mobile learning is a new way in language learning. It is the combination of mobilecommunications technologies with theories of mobile learning. With the popularity ofmobile handheld devices, especially mobile phones, mobile phone-based learning hasbecome the focus. Fetion is a real-time and economical instrument of communications.Users can log in Fetion by various terminals such as PC and mobile phones. Fetion canachieve the seamless communications services between internetwork and mobile networkand ensure that the clients are never offline. It is generally acknowledged by expertsabroad and at home that the integration of mobile learning with language teaching has thegreat potential. Vocabulary is the fundamental for listening, speaking, reading, writingand translating, playing a significant role in achieving the teaching objective of collegeEnglish. However, the status quo of learning college English vocabulary is a bigheadache. Vocabulary learning is not the focus of the college English classroom teaching.Most of college students learn the English words by rote-memory after class, resulting inthe time-consuming but ineffective outcomes. It is the burning question how to changethe status quo of learning college English vocabulary. The purpose of the study is to useFetion installed in the mobile phones to learn college English vocabulary so that thestatus quo of learning college English vocabulary is changed and the learning efficiencyis promoted.Based on the investigation of status quo of mobile English learning, this study is totestify the efficacy of mobile learning of college English vocabulary by the comparisonof learning results in three different presentation modes between mobile learning andpaper-printed learning. Besides, the effects of other factors such as gender, vocabulary size, motivation and frequency have also been tested on the learning results of mobilelearning of college English vocabulary. Finally, the self-designed questionnaire has beenused to measure the mobile learning experiences after finishing the immediate tests.The subjects of this study are186non-English major freshmen from six naturalclasses in Jiamusi University. The final English examination scores of the six classes aretested with no significant difference, which indicates that they have the similar Englishproficiency. The six classes are randomly divided into three experimental groups andthree control groups. Fifteen target words are selected. For the control groups, thepaper-printed learning materials all together are handed out to subjects in the first Englishclass in the week. For the experimental groups, the subjects finish learning fifteen targetwords in three days. The fifteen target words are divided into three groups, five words ineach group. And one group of five words is pushed by Fetion to experimental groups atregular interval three times a day. Besides, there are three presentation modes of thetarget words among experimental groups and control groups. The first presentation modeis target words with Chinese phonetics and annotation, the second with phonetics,Chinese annotation and one-sentence example and the third with phonetics, Chineseannotation and three-sentence examples. The immediate tests are conducted the other dayafter the experimental groups finish study and the experiences questionnaire aboutmobile learning of English vocabulary is also conducted at once after the immediate testsof the experimental groups while the immediate tests are conducted three days after thepaper-printed learning materials are handed out. Then the delayed tests are conducted aweek later after the immediate tests in both experimental groups and control groups.Based on the results in the delayed tests, nine subjects are selected as the interviewee. Allthe collected data are analyzed by SPSS21.0. Statistical results are as follows.(1) Based on the investigation of status quo of mobile English learning, the resultsare as follows.87.79%respondents have the internet-ready mobile phones.95.5%respondents have tried the mobile English learning.51.5%respondents use mobile phones as English learning tools.54.5%respondents use mobile phones to look up newwords in the electronic dictionary installed in the mobile phones and20.5%respondentsuse mobile phones to listen to the listening materials.32.2%respondents think texting isthe best presentation media.77.9%respondents think English vocabulary is the mostexpected learning contents.(2) There are significant differences in immediate test scores for the threepresentation modes between the experimental groups and control groups (t=4.866,P=0.000<0.05； t=5.957, P=0.000<.05； t=2.281, P=0.026<0.05）。 Students in theexperimental groups perform better than those in the control groups in the immediatetests. There are significant differences in delayed test scores for the three presentationmodes between the experimental groups and control groups (t=19.530, P=0.000<0.05；t=14.23, P=0.000<0.05；t=11.553, P=0.000<0.05). Better performance is presented in theexperimental groups than in the control groups.(3) There are significant differences in learning results for three presentation modesbetween immediate and delayed tests within control groups (F=39.34, P=0.000**<0.05；F=30.210, P=0.000<0.05). The immediate test scores for three presentation modes arehigher than the delayed test scores. The third presentation mode (target words withthree-sentence examples) is better than the second presentation mode (target words withone-sentence example)(MD=7.65, P=0.000**<0.05). Furthermore, the secondpresentation mode is better than the first presentation mode (target words with Chineseannotation)(MD=6.25, P=0.001**<0.05). Meanwhile, there are also significantdifferences in learning results of experimental groups for three presentation modesbetween immediate and delayed tests (F=6.943, P=0.002<0.05；F=24.12, P=0.000<0.05).Different from control groups, the delayed test scores are higher than the immediate testscores in the experimental groups (t(29)=6.292, P=0.000<0.05; t(34)=7.596,P=0.000<0.05; t(30)=-5.648, P=0.000<0.05). The second and the third presentationmodes are better than the first presentation mode (MD=8.43, P=0.001<0.05; MD=7.07, P=0.007<0.05). But there are no significant differences between the second and the thirdpresentation modes.(4) Based on the statistical results of the immediate and delayed tests, no significantdifferences are found in the mobile learning results between males and females (t=-1.509,P=1.35>0.05; t=-1.346, P=1.82>0.05). There are middling positive correlations betweenvocabulary size and immediate and delayed tests(r=0.400, P=000<0.01；r=0.311,P=0.002<0.01). There is a high positive correlation between motivation and theimmediate tests (r=.712, P=.000<0.01；r=0.667, P=.000<0.01) and there is a middlingpositive correlation between motivation and the delayed tests (r=0.667, P=.000<0.01).Besides, there is a middling positive correlation between frequency and the immediatetests (ρ=0.604, P=0.000**<0.01). According to the statistical analysis in One-WayANOVA, mobile learning results can reach the significant differences by learning thetarget words more than four times.(5) Based on the statistical results of experiences questionnaire of mobile learning ofEnglish vocabulary, in each presentation mode. No matter what presentation mode theyare, the mobile learning can motivate students and promote the teacher-studentcommunication. What’s more, the students all hold the positive attitudes towards themobile vocabulary learning. Furthermore, there are significant differences in motivation,attitude and teacher-student communication among three presentation modes (F=19.290,P=0.000<0.05; F=57.752, P=0.000<0.05; F=15.596, P=0.000<0.05). The highermotivation, more affirmative attitude and more positive communication are in the firstpresentation mode than in the second and third presentation mode while the betterperformance are in the motivation, attitude and teacher-student communication for thesecond presentation mode than for the third presentation mode.Based on the above analysis, conclusions are drawn as follows.(1) It is feasible touse Fetion to learn the college English vocabulary in the mobile way.(2) The betterresults of vocabulary learning are presented in the mobile way than in the paper-printed way.(3) The presentation modes have the effects on the mobile learning of Englishvocabulary. Target words with sentence examples are more beneficial to memory thanthose without sentence examples.(4) Gender has no effects on the mobile learning. Thefactors including vocabulary size, motivation and frequency have certain effects on themobile learning. Among other things, learning more than four times can result in thesignificant differences in the learning results.(5) The mobile learning can motivatestudents and promote the teacher-student communication. And students all hold positiveand affirmative attitudes towards mobile learning of English vocabulary. |
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