MALL and second language teaching: Challenges for initial teacher education

A vast body of research has been exploring the effectiveness of Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) in second language teaching and encouraging the incorporation of MALL into pedagogical practice (Bárcena, E. et al 2015, Kukulska-Hulme et al. 2015). Paradoxically, however, pre-service teachers tend to be unfamiliar with the benefits of using of mobile devices in language teaching and learning. Thus continued exposure to mobile-enhanced lessons is essential to the development of effective mobile-based tasks by pre-service teachers (Kevin et al. 2011). Considering that Initial Teacher Education is essential for shaping positive attitudes towards mobile technologies, this study aims to investigate how to best integrate MALL into Initial Teacher Education programs for second language teachers at the University of Coimbra. The goal of our study will be a) to prompt pre-service teachers to reflect on their use of mobile technologies (Kevin et. al. 2011), b) to engage pre-service teachers in effective mobile-learning activities (Hockly 2013) and c) to encourage lesson planning skills within recently developed mobile-enhanced pedagogical frameworks (Kukulska-Hulme et. al. 2015). In this paper, we describe our study and provide an outline of the phases that will be implemented, drawing implications about the challenges of mobile-learning for Initial Teacher Education in Portugal. While our study addresses primarily the needs identified through our contact with pre-service teachers of English, our discussion is also applicable to other content areas.