Mobile Assisted Language Learning Applications for Health Care Sciences Students: A User Experience Study

South Africa has 11 official languages and speakers of different languages communicate with each other on a daily basis, especially at hospitals and clinics. Sometimes it is difficult for a patient to find a health professional that speaks a language he/she understands. The University of Pretoria addresses potential language barriers in the health care professions by teaching students from the Faculty of Health Care Sciences Sepedi as an additional language. This study aimed to assist the university in its endeavor, by providing students enrolled for the Sepedi language module with three custom-designed Sepedi mobile assisted language learning (MALL) applications to be used as supplementary tools for their studies. The students used the applications over nine weeks after which they completed a questionnaire. The questionnaire was used to determine if the students thought the applications were useful and whether or not they had a clear preference for one application in particular.