Personalising engagement with t-MALL “First time having my French class using iPads~!! Woohoo!!<3”

Abstract

In foreign language learning, opportunities to practice the language are often confined to the classroom. Therefore, there is a need to allocate time during contact hours for communicative language tasks. Active learning challenges the students in meaningful activities in a socio-constructivist approach. In Malaysia, peer learning combined with technology mediated learning were observed successfully in engaging learners. Peer network as well as access to reference tools supported learning by increasing the learners’ confidence and motivation. A two-cycle action research was conducted over one semester to explore the implementation of active learning with a cohort of 24 beginner undergraduate students. The implementation of active learning was scheduled twice weekly in a computer laboratory. However, due to technical complications, the course was transferred once weekly to a lecture classroom. The lack of computers prompted the introduction of five additional iPads which were shared among learners. This article cyclically reflects upon the pedagogical and technological implementations of active learning and attempts to define the ideal settings to support classroom personalised and meaningful learning with an emphasis on the contributions of adopting tablet mobile assisted language learning (t-MALL).