Mobile-technology-induced learning strategies: Chinese university EFL students learning English in an emerging context

Abstract

This article reports on findings regarding the learning strategies used by a group of Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners in a mobile-technology-assisted environment. The research design is a context-specific case study using Dörnyei’s (2005) categories of learning strategies as the conceptual and analytical framework to guide data collection and analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a questionnaire from a sample of 75 Chinese EFL learners and a small-scale follow-up interview of five participants who completed the questionnaire. Data showed that a mobile-technology-assisted environment effected changes in Chinese EFL learners’ ways of adopting a particular set of learning strategies, which differed in type and frequency from those typical of a teacher-led and examination-oriented language classroom. Metacognitive and commitment control strategies were most frequently used by the respondents in this study. The frequency of student use of metacognitive strategies moved ahead of commitment and environmental control strategies. Satiation and emotion control strategies, rarely used by Chinese students in a teacher-fronted language classroom, were also observable. These findings have implications for the understanding and designing of mobile-technology-assisted learning for EFL learners to develop appropriate strategies for autonomous learning.

EFL college junior and senior students' self-regulated motivation for improving English speaking: A survey study

“…However, students showed regular attempts to look for online opportunities to practice their EFL speaking and thus compensating for inadequacies of formal poor in-class practice. Such a finding is commensurate with the notion that self-regulated students use contextual control and monitoring and consider environmental regulation as an essential aspect of their SLR (Diasti and Mbato, 2020;Gao and Shen, 2020;Sun and Wang, 2020;Yu et al, 2019). Besides, it substantiates relevant findings that EFL students who exercise higher environmental regulation could overcome the limitations of their poor formal EFL-input learning environments and find other rich informal EFL-input contexts to practice their EFL speaking (Uztosun, 2020).…”

“…SRM strategies are attempts or tactics that students use to motivate themselves to sustain or enhance their efforts to fulfill particular academic tasks ( Dörnyei, 2009 ; Miele and Scholer, 2017 ; Pintrich, 2004 ; Wolters and Benzon, 2013 ). Students can generate and bolster their self-motivation through controlling and regulating their task value, learning environment, affect, and classroom environment ( Boekaerts and Corno, 2005 ; Gao and Shen, 2020 ; Li, 2017 ; Pintrich, 2004 ; Teng et al., 2020 ; Uztosun, 2020 ).…”

“…Students may activate task value by connecting it to their academic goals, interests, or making it more enjoyable ( Efklides et al., 2017 ; Teng et al., 2020 ; Wang et al., 2021 ). In this sense, students with higher levels of task value and interest were found to employ more self-regulatory metacognitive techniques such as concentration, planning, monitoring, evaluating, and regulation ( Bai and Wang, 2021 ; Cho et al., 2020 ; Diasti and Mbato, 2020 ; Gao and Shen, 2020 ; Muwonge et al., 2020 ; Teng et al., 2020 ; Yu et al., 2019 ). Concerning English speaking, EFL students exhibiting higher task value could feel more enthusiastic about participating in oral communication in English when they sense that developing English-speaking competence is valuable ( Uztosun, 2020 ).…”

“…For instance, they may restructure their autonomous learning environment by eliminating distractions to their attention, moving to a quieter environment, or engaging in online learning opportunities. In this respect, self-regulated students were reported to employ contextual monitoring and controlling and deem environment regulation as an essential aspect of their SLR ( Diasti and Mbato, 2020 ; Gao and Shen, 2020 ; Park and Kim, 2021 ; Sun and Wang, 2020 ; Yu et al., 2019 ). Regarding English speaking, EFL students who exert higher environment control could surmount the limitations of their formal input-poor contexts and attempt to find other informal learning milieus to get exposed to a richer EFL input and more opportunities for out-of-class EFL practice ( Uztosun, 2020 ).…”

Factors Influencing Learners' Motivation in Mobile-Assisted Language Learning: A Case Study on Four Chinese EFL Learners

“…One argument in favor of such tools is that they provide language learners with a more flexible, personalized and interactive learning environment (Mondahl & Razmerita, 2014;Pilar et al, 2013), and recent studies have identified the advantages of mobile technologies in assisting language learning in both formal and informal learning settings (e.g. Fouz-González, 2020;Gao & Shen, 2020;Jin, 2017;Loewen et al, 2019). However, most of the research focuses on how emerging technologies are embedded with teaching and learning four basic language skills, which has left motivation as an area in MALL that needs more scholarly exploration (Gillespie, 2020).…”