2010-07-13

Families use mobiles to learn English together

In a collaborative project with the Government’s Digital Inclusion Team (DIT), nearly 50 ladies have been improving their English language using some of Anspear’s learning resources. Interviews with the participants at the halfway stage have been very encouraging, showing real enthusiasm to continue using the phones as an integral part of language learning.

Louise Severyn-Kosinska is a community outreach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teacher who has been supporting the use of the phones with one of her classes. She says, “We’ve been using the mobiles for five weeks now, and they’ve been a fantastic aid to the two-hour lessons we have each week. A two-hour lesson is just not enough, so having a resource to use at home, in your own time, everybody felt was very helpful.”

Notably, learners have been using the language materials extensively with their families. Participants have reported sharing the material with their husbands, and being supported by their children to complete the interactive exercises on the phones. Data collected at the halfway stage suggests the most frequently viewed lesson on the phone was the tutorial on the letters of the alphabet. In interviews with learners, this was corroborated by descriptions of teaching the alphabet to their younger children with the help of the new mobile phones. Furthermore, the software on the phones is able to support and record the progress of up to five individual learners, so learners have been able to share the benefits of the resources with their families and friends.