11
 Mobile Collaboration for Language Learning and Cultural Learning

AGNES KUKULSKA‐HULME AND HELEN LEE

Introduction

In an article on “The benefits of teaching languages outdoors,” Mandarin language teacher Jude McKerrecher (2016) describes how her students engaged in activities such as learning to describe a woodland area near their school; learning words to describe texture, feelings, smells, and sounds; making Chinese characters from twigs and stones; and creating banners to highlight the impact of pollution on their environment. The students also made a short video clip in Mandarin and English to share with a partner school in China. This example illustrates well how outdoor mobility might be combined with use of mobiles and other tools and resources in a broadly conceived social setting. As McKerrecher observes, “Human beings were not designed to spend hours each day surrounded by brick walls” (2016). She reports that her students enjoyed collaborating and having a real context for their language learning.

Perhaps these students will take something from this experience into their lives, seeking to relate their learning to real contexts, working together, and connecting with people from other cultures. The aims of a good education surely include developing learners to collaborate with others and explore new perspectives. In the twenty‐first century there is also growing recognition that the internet and social media give access to continuous informal learning in a multitude of areas of knowledge and experience, alongside, and sometimes instead of, formal learning. The resources are increasingly accessed on mobiles, and this portable technology can act as a bridge between different settings. It has been suggested that learning operates along a continuum, showing overlap between aspects of informality and formality based on location, process, content, and purpose (Colley et al. 2003). In mobile learning, Kukulska‐Hulme et al. (2007) made a distinction between formally designed activity, which students are asked to carry out, and informal user‐generated activity which arises from their own requirements, concluding that “a key opportunity is supporting learners when they negotiate blurred boundaries between formal and informal learning” (p. 61).

We are particularly interested in how people learn informally using their mobile phones and other portable devices, since these are versatile everyday tools that are always close to hand. Importantly, it is vital to consider use of these devices within a broader ecology of digital and real‐world resources and the circumstances in which they are, or might be, used. We see a need to examine how the informal learning already taking place on mobiles might be further supported or improved, and what teachers and others working in formal education can gain from a better understanding of how people learn informally in diverse settings. Social media and daily use of smartphones and tablets provide many learners with experiences of informal collaboration and sharing outside of class; however, this results in tacit knowledge that may not be drawn upon effectively when they are learning a language. Cultural knowledge and experiences are similarly acquired in everyday interactions and observations in real and virtual worlds. There is enormous scope to consider how learners can be better supported to draw educational value from these experiential, cultural learning experiences and how these experiences might be more effectively connected with classroom learning.

Research has shown that informal mobile language learning that is managed by learners themselves can be spontaneous (opportunistic) or planned (routine), or a mixture of the two (Kukulska‐Hulme and de los Arcos 2011; Demouy et al. 2016). The choices language learners make are context‐dependent as well as preference‐driven. Their informal learning outside formal classes might or might not be recognized as a valuable part of their language learning. Often the learners are left to figure out for themselves how mobile technology can help them; they are “left to their own devices” (Díaz‐Vera 2012).

Locations outside the classroom represent social spaces or “settings” that offer a variety of affordances for language learning (Benson and Reinders 2011), but these opportunities will not be fully realized unless we make efforts to propose and try out new designs for learning in these settings. It is especially important to consider how learners might assemble, configure or help create learning designs that involve mobile technologies, tasks and resources corresponding to their needs, in readiness for chance encounters and for more sustained learning. This may be done on their own or with others, especially teachers who are interested in helping learners make the most of opportunities outside of class. In particular, we are interested in how collaborative learning fits into the emerging landscape of informal mobile language learning. Informal learning can be solitary or social; solitary learning can be very challenging in that it requires high levels of self‐regulation and self‐motivation, whereas social interaction is known to support motivation, provide opportunities for feedback and is important for putting what has been learnt into practice.

Two key questions are pertinent to the issues outlined above when considering the nexus of collaboration, cultural experiences, and the interface between formal and informal learning:

  1. What are the key findings from research studies and reported experiences of collaboration in mobile language learning, with particular reference to informal settings and cultural learning?
  2. What do these findings mean for teacher roles, and how can learners be supported and developed to engage more effectively in collaborative and cultural mobile language learning?

These two broad questions set the scene for this chapter and guide its structure. In the first part, we focus on existing studies to examine what has been tried and to establish the key findings. The existing studies include some in which we have been involved, often as lead researchers. After that, the focus is on teachers and learners: their changing roles and the foregrounding or development of competencies and skills that are important for more informal, and perhaps increasingly collaborative, mobile language learning.

Informal mobile language learning and collaboration

As noted in a recent literature review of informal mobile language learning (Jones et al. 2018), there have been few reported studies on language learning that is both mobile and informal, with most of the published studies having been based within formal education settings. Furthermore, Burston's (2014) review of mobile‐assisted language learning (MALL) applications found that three‐quarters of them were focused on individual rather than collaborative learning. Mobile collaborative language learning is an emerging area with relatively few publications until recently, but with considerable promise. When Kukulska‐Hulme and Viberg (2018) reviewed over 30 studies on mobile collaborative language learning, it became clear that there is a convincing case for multiple benefits of collaboration. Strong common themes encountered across the reviewed literatures include active learner participation, engagement, and personalization of learning.

While these reviews point to a relative scarcity of studies on informal and collaborative language learning with mobile devices, they show a tantalizing range of possibilities. Learning designs for guided informal learning can draw on learners' existing informal practices, while designs for collaboration can take inspiration from “sharing” practices on social media as well as from experiences of virtual tutoring via Skype or other platforms that enable everyday videoconferencing between friends, informally encountered language practice “partners,” or for private language tuition. Many of these types of experiences will not have been captured in the research literature, at least not yet, since publications lag behind emerging practices.

Mobile technologies offer affordances and opportunities for language learners which have the potential to enrich and transform their learning experiences across a variety of formal but also informal contexts. Affordances of mobile devices include their potential to enable social connectivity while mobile and across physical settings, and to allow quick access to multimedia resources. Features such as these ensure that devices like tablets and smartphones are capable of supporting language learners to form personal learning networks and “communities of practice” (Lave and Wenger 1991). Connected groups of peers and experts represent examples of learning through forms of social capital, with communities evolving naturally or perhaps created for a specific purpose. For example, groups of learners from two different countries connect with each other in order to practice their language skills. It has also been noted that learning “out in the world” (Brown 2010) is frequently informal and can draw new people into a learning experience who might be present in a place and decide to participate (Kukulska‐Hulme 2013a). A field trial of smartphone use by migrants in the UK mentions mobile learners enjoying building relationships with other learners and practicing at home with their children (Jones et al. 2018). Mobiles are ideally suited to enable learners to build social contacts and to learn through forms of collaboration (Kukulska‐Hulme and Shield 2008). They also offer opportunities to engage in cultures of participation in ways which reflect “the life‐worlds of users” (Pachler et al. 2010, p. 13).

Merriam and Bierema (2013) have identified four subtypes of learning which they suggest are specific to informal learning. They can be summarized as follows:

  1. Self‐directed learning. Learner‐initiated and guided learning activity.
  2. Incidental learning. An accidental by‐product of another learning activity that occurs outside of the learner's consciousness as an unplanned or unintended consequence of doing something else.
  3. Tacit learning. The most subtle form of informal learning which occurs at the subconscious level based on aspects such as intuition and personal experiences.
  4. Integrative learning. Integration of nonconscious tacit knowledge with conscious learning activities providing creative insight.

Despite its considerable potential, the subject of informal language learning via mobiles “is less explored territory to date” (Kukulska‐Hulme, p. 138) when compared to learning within more formal settings (see Burston 2015; Kukulska‐Hulme and Shield 2008). There are also nuances within formal/informal depictions which become apparent when attempts are made to address the differences between these two areas. Colley et al.'s (2003) research on adult learners, which took place across a series of diverse contexts, found that attributes of both formal and informal learning were evidenced across all the scenarios to various degrees. As a consequence, they suggest that formality/informality are to be viewed as occurring across a continuum with recommendations that the learning situation is analyzed according to the following areas: process of learning, location and setting, purpose of learning; and content covered (p. 8). Whilst informal learning might normally be considered to occur spontaneously, the term informal within learning with mobiles is also sometimes used to describe learning experiences where the technology supports an activity that has in fact been designed in advance with a group of users in mind (Kukulska‐Hulme et al. 2007).

Keeping track of informal language learning via mobiles poses challenges for researchers and teachers alike in that the learning unfolds across a diversity of contexts (including unpredictable places and times) and, as a result, may be especially difficult to observe or quantify (Sharples 2009). When learners are required to operate in self‐directed ways, some may not fully understand how they might be capable of learning without more traditional forms of guidance from their teacher. In informal scenarios, learners will also be required to assume greater degrees of autonomy and may find themselves operating outside the classroom as they engage with resources and contexts which may already be familiar to them as part of their everyday lives. From this perspective, learning becomes somewhat serendipitous, for example, a learner might casually watch a video on YouTube on the way home on the bus because they would like to make a specific dish for dinner; however, in engaging with the resource they are then inadvertently exposed to some new L2 (second/foreign language) vocabulary which they might decide to explore by checking meanings or usage. Within informal scenarios, affective aspects of learning such as capturing meaningful experiences out in the world (Ros i Solé 2016) assume precedence over more traditional tasks where, for example, the language focus has been predetermined by a teacher in a classroom. An informal learning task could involve interaction with peers, when a group of learners are asked to take photos of their surroundings and upload them to a social media platform with comments in their L2. Furthermore, some learners may have to be convinced that capturing images of the world around them will add value to their learning of a language; and teachers play an important role in helping learners to understand how to make the most of the more informal language‐learning opportunities which are embedded in their daily lives.

Fostering peer collaboration via mobile devices

Whilst learners' self‐directed use of mobile devices can enable them to create a variety of autonomous learning experiences “anytime and anywhere,” learners themselves have reported that they primarily use mobile technologies in individualistic ways with regard to their learning of language. For instance, “learners were found to use mobile devices more for facilitating the personalization of learning than for enhancing the authenticity and social connection in learning” (Lai and Zheng 2018, p. 299). Conversely, the importance of creating opportunities for L2 learners to engage in authentic language experiences and “real communication” is emphasized in principles which underpin language learning beyond the classroom (Nunan and Richards 2015; Benson and Reinders 2011). Moreover, language learning itself has been defined as “a deeply social event that requires the incorporation of a wide range of elements of the L2 culture” (Dörnyei 2001, p. 159).

In terms of how language learners exploit mobile devices, popular activities include their use of dictionaries, translation tools, and search engines, but also involves them accessing audio clips and watching videos (Lai and Zheng 2018). Whilst these learning activities are undoubtedly valuable, they can only provide sources of input (Krashen 1985) and do not support learners to “produce language” (Swain 1985) and to improve their communication skills. Moreover, language learning with mobiles is about much more than the acquisition of language – features of devices can be exploited by learners in order to engage with identities and surroundings as they build social relationships and acquire knowledge about a variety of different cultures. Jenkins et al. (2006) argue that digital access should entail the development of “cultural competencies and social skills” (p. 4) which are built around the notion of participation in communities and which can be supported via forms of pedagogic intervention. Lai and Zheng (2018) used survey and interview tools to establish how 256 language learners, studying at a university in Hong Kong, perceived their agentic learning experiences from beyond the classroom. They found that “self‐directed” learning was highly dependent on the nature of the tasks and on how learners themselves perceived the available affordances of mobile devices, their wider cultural and habitual use. Whilst learners appropriated features of devices such as access to language learning apps and photo‐captured texts and vocabulary lists, it was concluded that “educational mediation and interventions” would be required in order to enhance the possibilities for learners to use devices in more social and collaborative ways (p. 312).

Ros i Solé et al. (2010) emphasize how spontaneous, social, and collaborative aspects of language learning can be supported through the use of mobile devices from beyond the classroom. In their study, they deliberately chose a mobile device which was not only an MP4 player but also a recording device. The aim was to allow learners to become content creators and to gain opportunities to foster speaking skills as they were encouraged to “try out language learning practices in different scenarios” (p. 42). This entailed participants operating without a teacher and “experiencing language within the wider context of their social experiences and habitual practices” (p. 40). In that study, features of devices such as context sensitivity, individuality, portability, immediacy, and social interactivity were linked to communicative tasks such as recording a piece about a favorite place, describing a film, and conducting an interview with a native speaker. Participants were also offered initial guidance in the form of suggested tasks which were decided on in advance. For example, it is evident that forms of collaboration were partially encouraged through input from the researchers which required that learners conduct and record interviews with native speakers. The interviews were then conducted according to the learners' preferences: their choice of place of recording, topic, manner of conducting the interview, etc. As the learners were operating outside the classroom, interviews occurred within authentic settings such as a local church and involved language use but also opportunities for learners to demonstrate their awareness of sensitive cultural issues. For instance, the learner interviews reveal how they avoided mentioning Kosovan independence when situated within a Serbian church. The authors do not discuss specific definitions of informal learning; however, their study involved the participants operating in self‐directed ways where the learning appears to have occurred incidentally and experientially, without the implementation of theories of learning or measurement of outcomes, and through encouragement to use mobiles in “an open and undirected way” (p. 44). Nevertheless, an initial “lesson” was given in which the teacher suggested possible activities which learners might carry out with their devices. Following the tasks, the recordings were brought back to the classroom where they could be shared with teachers and peers. The overall approach indicates that whilst learners may be familiar with using the technology within their daily lives, they still require certain levels of guidance.

Nah et al. (2008) highlight how features of mobile phones such as their portability and accessibility can support language learning in collaborative ways as participants are exposed to “opportunities to negotiate for meaning through dialogue with teachers and peers” (p. 334). The ubiquity of a range of social media and communication platforms such as Facebook, WhatsApp or WeChat can support forms of collaborative learning via multimodal combinations of images, text‐based chat, voice recording, and video. Conversely, learners may remain largely unaware how best to harness the everyday communicative affordances of their devices without forms of pedagogic intervention.

Forms of context‐relevant collaboration beyond the classroom

Mobile blogs have also been exploited as social spaces which can be used to enable learners to autonomously participate in “communities” (Lave and Wenger 1991) which involves them communicating in meaningful and situated ways. Blogs are social spaces which can support language learners to collaborate online when they become geographically dispersed (e.g. through a period being spent abroad) whilst also engaging them with the learning of the language and culture in which they are immersed, as demonstrated in studies conducted by Comas‐Quinn et al. (2009) and Petersen et al. (2008). These two studies encompass depictions of participants' informal and situated learning experiences in ways which draw attention to the importance of fostering forms of collaboration and connectedness via the affordances of the technology and in relationship to learners' engagement with their surroundings. However, Petersen et al. (2008) found that the learners' use of the blog in itself was insufficient means to overcome issues such as their lack of identity in relationship to the community in which they were asked to participate. In Comas‐Quinn et al. (2009), the purpose of the project was to engage learners in the creation of an online blog which focused on their reflections regarding the foreign culture in which they had become immersed. Furthermore, forms of connectivity ensured that the students who had traveled to Spain would be enabled to share their cultural experiences and reflections with those who had not been able to travel, thus avoiding forms of exclusion. Students exploited mobile phones, digital cameras, and MP3 recorders to record examples of their encounters with the culture in situ with the aim of creating an online dialogue. They were also supported in that they were given a written plan and a range of materials to help guide them through the task. Learning was achieved in ways which appeared to involve tacit forms of learning in that the students were free to take advantage of the culture according to their own particular interests, with their personal and affective experiences considered to be especially important in terms of the generation of knowledge.

There is also a growing body of work in the field of mobile learning research which draws on elements of context together with elements of both informal and formal aspects of language learning (Al‐Shehri 2011; Lee 2015; Kukulska‐Hulme et al. 2017; Wong et al. 2012). In these studies, elements of context, involving learners' interaction with artifacts and people in their everyday surroundings, are used to build communication skills and to enable learners to exploit experiences outside the classroom to identify and acquire specific language items. Context‐aware forms of learning which encourage student‐centered approaches, peer collaboration, and opportunities for communication can be enabled by devices such as phones and tablets with scaffolding provided by an expert. The educator therefore plays a background role in approaches to tasks and, for example, in helping learners to understand language in relationship to its situated context. The advantage is that instead of solely presenting lists or items of language in the classroom, learners themselves are able to engage in more collaborative activities where “in situ resources mediate learning activities in any learning space, rather than resources always being dictated by the teacher” (Wong et al. 2012, p. 411). Tasks in these studies included encouragement for learners to access and create content on their devices from spaces such as the workplace, streets, museums, historical buildings, cafés, basketball courts, and gardens, with stimulated recall interviews also used as a method to explore a learner‐centered perspective on the activities. From this perspective, “the learning experience itself is mobile, as learners shift between contexts that feed directly into their unfolding learning” (Pegrum 2014, p. 19).

Al‐Shehri (2011) identified mobile phones as enablers for social networking and contextualized language‐learning opportunities. A study was conducted with 33 EFL (English as a foreign language) university students in Saudi Arabia. Students were encouraged to upload multimedia material from their own particular contexts; for example, they made a video of their home town and posted this to a Facebook group using their phone. The group were supported to interact with one another as they posted but also responded to one another's comments. The learning design was intended to encourage students to reflect on the linguistic elements of their material with forms of pedagogic support which aimed to focus on aspects of language and to match these to features of the context. Interview data revealed that learners were prompted to visit new places due to sharing their peer‐generated videos. It was concluded that “students will lead their mobile learning initiatives by creating their learning content and resources and manipulating their mobile social interaction” (p. 284).

In another context‐focused research study, Lee (2015, cited in Kukulska‐Hulme et al. 2017) enabled collaborative and communicative forms of language learning as speaking tasks were implemented in contexts beyond the classroom: these included local cafes, restaurants, gardens, and museums. The Skype videoconferencing app was downloaded onto tablets and smartphones and dyads of learners from different cultural backgrounds were interconnected via the videoconferencing in these locales, in the UK city in which the learners were studying the target language (English). They were afforded opportunities to negotiate for meaning in embodied and “mobile” ways as they moved within these locales, with technology used to show and share artifacts such as menus, food, paintings, and photos. Whilst the tasks promoted collaborative language use, they also provided more spontaneous opportunities for learners to explore one another's home culture and to learn more about the target language culture. Furthermore, learners were given opportunities, through stimulated recall interviews, to reflect on their task‐based experiences from beyond the classroom in ways which were designed to help them to identify problematic areas within their communication from multimodal perspectives.

Context‐relevant learning was also a focus for Wong et al. (2012) who wanted to explore how artifacts from the everyday world could be exploited by language learners in order to learn a series of Chinese idioms based around movement: “move idioms.” Their “mobile‐assisted Chinese language learning approach” emphasized how the affordances of smartphones, such as the ability to take photos of real‐life contexts, can be used to bring idioms to life and help learners to position the idioms within sentences which can then be posted onto a wiki space for peers to review. Learners worked in small groups, were assigned different contexts around their campus (canteen, garden, basketball court, etc.), and then used multiple idioms to describe the stories which they had depicted in their photos. Teachers assumed a role in scaffolding these types of learner‐centered activities.

Roles for teachers

The types of research we have cited in this chapter have implications for teachers in that they potentially entail the development of appropriate strategies to support learners to learn in more informal ways. In the case of informal learning with mobiles, teachers assume a new but nevertheless critical role. Within these scenarios, the traditional pedagogic role is challenged in that the teacher becomes the facilitator or orchestrator, rather than an authoritative figure who directs learning from the front.

Teachers working in classrooms can enable comprehensive discussions with groups of learners and ask them how they think they learn informally; and to exchange ideas about how this might be improved. Peers and teachers can make suggestions as to how various features of mobiles might support certain language skills in different ways; for example, capturing images can create opportunities to focus on meaning‐based vocabulary items which are situated in the world. Conversations taking place on a social media platform can be reviewed in the classroom with a focus on aspects of grammatical accuracy to ensure that learners understand how their online conversations can be harnessed to become a source of knowledge. The advantage is that learners ideally become more actively involved in their own learning as they work together with teachers and peers to solve problems and reflect on the language they use across a diverse range of contexts.

Devices also have the capacity to record and store video and audio files in ways which transform learners into content creators as they move through life. Learners could be encouraged to capture two‐way conversations, with appropriate permission being sought to make the recording, as well as using their mobiles to record their individual experiences and narratives. Recordings captured from learners' everyday encounters can go on to form rich data sources which can be shared with peers and teachers for feedback. For example, learners could be encouraged to record their transactions in shops, perhaps where there are friendly people serving who are willing to be recorded; or a learning partner could listen to such an interaction and make notes. They could later be asked to examine how they felt they dealt with these interactions at the time and how they could be improved for the future.

Social media platforms are also versatile tools which most learners will already use in their daily lives. Groups can be prompted to use them to communicate in their L2, with language and images from these platforms being revisited later in terms of helping learners to understand how combinations of these can be used to contextualize specific items of language. Teachers can also consider designing a range of pedagogic tasks which are enabled by mobiles from beyond the classroom as they consider elements such as which platform to use, the real‐world contexts, groupings of learners, and the levels of support required. Emergent models for pedagogy in mobile learning involve the teacher learning to integrate activities from within and beyond the classroom and exploiting features of devices such as mobility and portability, social connectivity, multimodal communication, context‐dependence, and personalization (see Kukulska‐Hulme et al. 2017, as well as Pegrum 2014, for overviews of this area).

Support for learners

In informal scenarios learners may have to become skilled at recognizing their own needs and setting appropriate goals as they become responsible for an evaluation of their learning outcomes. They are simultaneously developing lifelong skills, in that many younger adults will initially spend time studying in a formal manner but then find that the pressures of work and family life ensure they will have to direct their own learning instead in more informal ways. Kukulska‐Hulme (2013b) has argued that learners need to be “reskilled for an increasingly mobile world” in that their choices can be influenced by what they happen to stumble upon, rather than focusing on the language skills which could be best improved via mobiles (p. 2). She suggests that many learners consider devices to be just another way to receive “familiar types of content involving memorization, repetition, listening, and responding” rather than understanding their potential to “extend or practise their communication with others” (p. 2). Learning a language “in the wild” may need to be scaffolded by teachers in order to enable learners to communicate, share experiences, and construct knowledge via the building of intercultural relationships. Learners can also be prepared in advance to understand the value of harnessing serendipitous opportunities where they may be pushed to discover the purpose and meaning of their shared learning experiences from beyond the classroom.

The problem remains that many language teachers still enter their classrooms with a detailed plan, the reassurance of a structured syllabus, and a list of outcomes which they may wish to also use to support their learners' deployment of mobile technologies from beyond the classroom. However, transformative types of learning require a different mindset from teachers and learners as knowledge construction is seen to result from forms of inquiry and use of technological tools. As Pachler et al. (2010) note, “media convergence facilitated by, and characteristic of the web […] are far more difficult to control and hence to integrate into or to subsume into the purposes of a traditional curriculum” (p. 15). Teachers will therefore need to help learners to understand that traditionally accepted evidence of learning such as written essays and grammatical testing can be usefully complemented with more informal approaches.

Teachers can also harness concepts such as group work to demonstrate to learners that they are capable of supporting the language and cultural skills development of peers through understanding the communicative potential of features inherent in their devices as a means to foster their collaborations with one another. In these scenarios, learners can draw on their differences to solve problems, build confidence, and learn to operate effectively in international teams as they teach one another to learn a language via collating and sharing photos, text, video, audio, maps, etc. As a result, group work across mobiles can be seen as a way to develop a range of skills for life and future work situations. These skills might encompass teachers valuing opportunities for their learners to develop language abilities; communicative and intercultural competencies; multiliteracies (Paesani et al. 2015); and teamwork.

In the case of forms of pedagogy designed to support informal learning practices, learners could engage in active fieldwork as they exploit their devices to observe and capture data from the world around them. Fieldwork is normally associated with disciplines such as the sciences. However, the concept broadly represents a form of learning through inquiry where “a person immerses themselves in ongoing social activities” (Wolcott 2005). Findings demonstrate that methods of “inquiry learning” (observation, data collection, reflection) can be successfully supported by mobile devices with learners acting as researchers and teachers scaffolding activities in order “to facilitate learners' engagement with social and cultural contexts” (Charitonos 2018). In Charitonos's study, heritage language learners operating within programs in Greek Supplementary Schools in the UK were encouraged to engage in forms of “citizen‐led inquiry” as they developed agency through developing their reasoning skills and problem‐solving abilities. It was decided that the specific needs of this particular group of young learners could not be met through focusing on more traditional pedagogic concepts such as second language acquisition and development of linguistic proficiency. As a result, learners were instead encouraged to interact and engage with their own heritage and identities as their everyday lives and environments were harnessed in order to enable them to identify objects which reminded them of their heritage culture. Devices were used to collect data such as photos which prompted learners to associate visual representations with their own recollections and personal associations. The teacher worked with the group back in the classroom where they exploited the visual depictions of the objects to help learners to understand how, for example, Greek proverbs could be related to the objects. According to Charitonos (2018) the approach to learning allowed the group to connect prior knowledge or ideas and helped them monitor their own understanding, enabling gaps to be identified.

Conclusion

Research studies reviewed for this chapter, as well as those that were part of previous literature reviews cited here, show that collaborative language learning with mobile devices can support informal learning scenarios and connect out‐of‐class with in‐class learning. It is evident that learning with mobiles may occur in tacit and accidental ways which may only become concretized following the event itself, for example, when data is collected, analyzed, and “made sense of” through collaboration with teachers and peers back in the classroom. From this perspective, learning in informal ways entails a journey or act of faith with learners asked to work together in order to explore situations and uncover information rather than have it presented to them. Moreover, learning with mobiles has the potential to strengthen and transform learners' identities through their intercultural contact with one another and the world around them. This can happen when teachers enable learners to exploit their devices to set up intercultural communities via social media platforms which then become spaces to enable exploration of their own cultural identities and that of their peers. If learners are studying on face‐to‐face programs, teachers can encourage mixed nationality groups to collaborate via forms of inquiry‐based learning as a way to build teamworking skills and to appreciate the value of diversity in terms of contribution to projects. These approaches to learning will be reflective of wider societal demands in that “people of diverse nationalities are being asked to communicate and work together in an increasingly mobile and global society” (Garrett‐Rucks 2016, p. 1). We are also mindful of the fact that not all societies may share such intercultural goals.

We have drawn up a list of five areas of focus for teachers and learners to become aware that language learning with mobiles can operate across a highly‐flexible continuum:

  1. Recognition of aspects of formality/informality in terms of teachers' and learners' inputs, for example, teachers may suggest tasks but learners are free to choose how they wish to interpret these and to decide for themselves when and where they might take place.
  2. Enabling of collaborative forms of learning through fostering intercultural group work.
  3. Understanding nuanced degrees of formality/informality in terms of designated contexts in which to build skills, for example, extending classroom learning to learning in the field from everyday life and real‐world situations.
  4. Structured tasks and activities implemented by teachers/learners as autonomous agents creating their own content and shaping their own goals and outcomes through inquiry learning.
  5. Tacit and serendipitous forms of learning, combined with more conscious forms of learning; the latter enabled by the teacher through helping learners to make sense of the data they have collected from beyond the classroom.

Collaboration supported by mobiles in informal contexts is a considerably different perspective on learning and on the roles of teachers and learners, such that it may be seen to threaten or destabilize many well‐established educational approaches and entrenched practices. It deserves to be developed and researched more fully, but its benefits for learners are already becoming clear both in terms of language learning and cultural learning.

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