Using video recordings by mobile phones to improve students' confidence and communication skill

Abstract

In order to enhance EFL learning, the development of update technological support has been a critical issue over the past decade. With a booming mobile market in Vietnam, the use of mobile and other portable devices is beginning to have an influence in language teaching and learning. Besides, enhancing students’ confidence in using English teaching to communicate with others has become one of the main objectives in English teaching and learning at university over the last few years. A suggesion, this study has explored the effectiveness of using mobile phones as video recorders to help student gain more confident and improve communication skill. The study involved designing communicative tasks which required students to user their cell phones to create some short clips in which they had to speak English. During the process, an observation sheet was applied to get student’s reponses so that teachers could provide instant support. Following was a questionaire to get student’s feedback about effectiveness of these activities. Finally, interviews with students was conducted to find out the attitude towards the use of mobile phones as a tool for learning especially language learning. The results showed that using mobile phones for language learning seemed to create an inspiring learning invironment for students in which they tended to be more confident to express their opinions. Even though there were some issues related to techical problems or internet access, student participants showed their great interest in the activities as well as improve their communitve skills.