Students' and teachers' perceptions of a mobile learning intervention in English as foreign language

Nowadays, the use of mobile technologies is widely extended. As a consequence, over the last few years there has been an increasing interest in including these elements in teaching as well as in highlighting its educational possibilities. However, there is still little research that has studied this aspect in secondary education. Thus, the aim of this study was to know the students' and teachers' perceptions of a Mobile Assisted Language Learning intervention. A case study design was used. 18 secondary school students and a teacher participated in the research. Different instruments were used to collect data: (1) teacher's diary, (2) open-ended question and (c) semi-structured interviews. Atlas.ti 7 software was used to help with data management. All the participants' answers were analysed via content analysis and constant comparison methods. Data analysis produced six categories: learning, novelty, cooperation, motivation, teaching approach, and friendship. The results showed that the intervention helped students to improve their linguistic competence, their motivation for learning English, to work in teams, and to improve their friendship links with their classmates. Likewise, the approach was considered as novel, far from the traditional approach based on the text book. In conclusion, these results reflect the educational benefits of mobile learning in english as a foreign language in secondary education.