English instructors' attitudes toward mobile assisted language learning: A descriptive study

The purpose of the study is to reveal instructor attitudes toward Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in the School of Foreign Languages at a state university in Turkey. Another aim of the study was to discover students' perceptions toward MALL from instructors' perspective. In attempt to find answers to research questions, a descriptive research design was used. 15 English instructors who work in the School of Foreign Languages at Harran University participated in the study. As data collection instrument, a survey designed by Christensen and Knezek (1998) was administered and a semi-structured interview was conducted. The survey had 5 sub-sections apart from the demographic information part; enthusiasm, anxiety, productivity improvement, avoidance, and mobile phone use for classroom learning. Semi-structured interview was designed to shed light on instructors' attitudes toward MALL, and their perception of what their students thought of the use of MALL. Use of mobile technology in language classrooms is inevitable in the future, and teachers must be trained in order to keep up with the developments. The results reveal that though they have concerns regarding how to control mobile phone use in the language classroom, instructors have rather a positive attitude toward the use of MALL. Findings also assert that students have a positive attitude toward mobile assisted language learning thanks to the fact that they are already familiar with mobile phones through their everyday experience. Keywords: Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL); Teacher Attitudes;Technology