This study proposes an evaluation and benchmarking decision matrix (DM) on the basis of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) for young learners' English mobile applications (E-apps) in terms of listening, speaking, reading and writing (LSRW) skills. Benchmarking E-apps for young learners is challenging due to (a) multiple criteria, (b) criteria importance and (c) data variation. The DM was constructed on the basis of the intersection amongst evaluation criteria in terms of LSRW and E-apps for young learners. The criteria were adopted from a preschool education curriculum standard. The DM data included six E-apps as alternatives and 17 skills as criteria. Thereafter, the six E-apps were evaluated by distributing a checklist form amongst six English learning experts. These apps were subsequently benchmarked by utilising MCDM methods, namely, best-worst method (BWM) and technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). BWM was used for criterion weighting, whereas TOPSIS was employed to benchmark and rank the apps. TOPSIS was utilised in two contexts, namely, individual and group. In the group context, internal and external aggregations are applied. Mean was computed to ensure that the E-apps undergo a systematic ranking for objective validation. This study provides scenarios and a benchmarking checklist to evaluate and compare the proposed work with six relative studies. Results indicated that (1) BWM is suitable for criteria weighting. (2) TOPSIS is suitable for benchmarking and ranking E-apps. Moreover, the internal and external TOPSIS group decision making exhibited similar findings, with the best app being 'Montessori' and the worst app being 'FunWithFlupe.' (3) For objective validation, remarkable differences were observed amongst the group scores, which indicate that the internal and external ranking results are identical. (4) In the evaluation, the proposed DM revealed advantages over the six relative studies by 40.00%, 53.33%, 40.00%, 46.67%, 46.67% and 46.67%. INDEX TERMS Language learning app evaluation, language learning app assessment, language teaching/learning strategies. B. B. ZAIDAN received the B.Sc. degree in applied mathematics from Al-Nahrain University, Baghdad, Iraq, in 2004, and the M.Sc. degree in data communications and information security from the University of Malaya, Malaysia, in 2009. He is currently working as a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Computing, University Pendidikan Sultan Idris. He led or has been a member for many funded research projects, and has published more than 150 articles at various international conferences and journals. His research areas are artificial intelligence, decision theory, information security and network, and multicriteria evaluation and benchmarking. O. S. ALBAHRI received the B.Sc. degree in computer science from Al Turath University College, Baghdad, Iraq, in 2011, the M.Sc. degree in computer science and communication from Arts,

Children learn from what they see and hear. One of the attractive applications is animation story and these children are exposed to various types of animation story. However, not all animation stories presented are suitable for children's education in terms of exaggeration elements applied in animation. Furthermore, the existence of mobile application does not emphasize the touch gesture that is suitable for children's age. Hence, there is a lack of mobile learning applications with education-oriented environment for children's education. Therefore, there is a need for research to develop a well-designed mobile application with suitable exaggeration elements together with good story plots and socio-cultural values to educate as well entertain children. This paper discusses the design and development of Malay folktales mobile application called MFolktales based on a local Malay folktale story. MFolktales is an Android-based application and it was developed based on the validated conceptual model as well as analyzed and defined design principles and requirements. This paper presents the development process of MFolktales application. The development life cycle was adopted from ADDIE Instructional Design (ID) model, taking into consideration the animation development process of pre-production, production, and post-production. Overall, there are five phases involved in the development life cycle: analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. The application was tested to strengthen its functionality and usability. The result shows that MFolktales application is ready to be tested to real users and ready to be commercialized.

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