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In L. Bradley & S. Thouësny (Eds.), CALL: Using, Learning, Knowing, EUROCALL Conference, Gothenburg, Sweden,
22-25 August 2012, Proceedings (pp. 296-301). © Research-publishing.net Dublin 2012
Mobile Learning in Foreign Language
Learning: Podcasts and Lexicon Acquisition
in the Elementary Instruction of Italian
Eva Maria Unterrainer*
University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria
Abstract. This paper illustrates the research design (including the pilot study) of a
work-in-progress study aimed at examining the potential of bilingual podcasts for the
vocabulary acquisition in Italian as an L3 in the Austrian school context for beginning
learners. The longitudinal study tries to link ndings of the Lexical Approach (Lewis,
1993, 1997) and the Mental Lexicon (Aitchison, 2005) by taking into account lexical
learning and the importance of spoken language for acquisition and by connecting them
to the opportunities offered by podcasts as a means of mobile (micro) learning (cf. Hug,
2007a, 2007b, 2010a, 2010b; Hug & Friesen, 2007). In order to investigate the effects
of podcasts on the lexical acquisition of Italian as an L3 two groups of participants will
be analysed: (a) an experimental group (students use self-made, bilingual podcasts –
German-Italian – to learn the lexical items), and (b) a control group (students are presented
with lexical input without using podcasts). During the study, classroom teaching of the
two groups will be observed in order to conduct a third-party-observation (cf. Bortz &
Döring, 2009) of the participants and to compare and contrast their lexical input. A pre-
and a post-test of lexical acquisition will be carried out at the beginning and the end of the
observation period. As the use of podcasts as a tool of mobile learning might considerably
change the vocabulary learning strategies of the participants in the experimental group,
a questionnaire at the beginning and the end of the study will be applied in addition. It
is assumed that, due to the Lexical Approach and the Mental Lexicon and enhanced by
the mobile nature of the podcasts, the experimental group will achieve a higher increase
of Italian lexicon than the control group. However, the executed pilot study has revealed
weaknesses in the research design, which have to be adapted for the nal case study.
Keywords: lexicon, mobile learning, Italian.
* Contact author: eva.unterrainer@uibk.ac.at
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Mobile Learning in Foreign Language Learning: Podcasts and Lexicon Acquisition...
1. Introduction
Digital media play an increasingly important part in our lives; the property and
accordingly the use of digital media increase constantly. This case study aims at trying
to take advantage of the students’ use of media such as mobile phones and iPod/
MP3 players in their leisure time for the learning of languages. Specically, students
will learn the lexicon in their rst year of learning Italian as a foreign language at
school by using self-created audio podcasts; as Lewis (1993) has already suggested
with his “lexical approach”, the focus lies on listening: “[…] a well-balanced learning
programme will, in the early stages, place great emphasis on receptive skills, in
particular, listening” (p. 8). Previous research has tended to focus on reading (cf. Read,
2000, p. 47) and there is little research and knowledge of how vocabulary is learned
from listening (cf. Schmitt, 2010, p. 38). Furthermore, “[o]ne of the main shortcomings
of ...[some vocabulary research] is that it has focused attention on the acquisition of
vocabulary divorced from use […]. Many of the subjects tested in the methodological
comparisons were not real language learners, the time-scale studied was short […], and
the vocabularies learned were actually quite small […].” (Meara, 1999, p. 565, cited in
Schmitt, 2010, p. 43). Therefore, this case study aims at bridging this research gap and
in addition at including the concept of mobile learning.
2. Mobile (micro) learning in the language classroom
The term “microlearning” as such is relatively young; Hug and Friesen (2007) state that
the term has been in use for only about ten years, even though the underlying concept
partially goes back far into the past (p. 16). Microlearning contains various forms of
learning: informal learning activities in the context of social software applications,
incidental learning with digital media, etc. (cf. Hug, 2010a, p. 202; Hug, 2010b, p. 200),
but it is not simply equated with informal and lifelong learning (cf. Hug & Friesen,
2007, p. 18). Microlearning in the broadest sense can be viewed rather as “learning
with micro-content” (ibid.), that is, learning with small individual units; in summary,
microlearning can be understood as “special moments or episodes of learning while
dealing with specic tasks or content, but engaging in small but conscious steps. These
moments, episodes and processes may vary depending on the pedagogies and media
involved, but the measures of scale of the amount of time and content involved can be
made fairly constant” (Hug & Friesen, 2007, p. 18).
This leads us to a possible combination of microlearning and mobile learning. The
term “‘mobile learning’ is frequently used to refer to the use of handheld technologies
enabling the learner to be ‘on the move’, providing anytime, anywhere access for
learning” (Price, 2007, p. 33). Hug (2010a) calls this a narrow sense of mobile learning,
in which mobile devices and software applications are at the centre. More broadly,
mobile learning is not only about the transfer of content using mobile devices, it
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Eva Maria Unterrainer
rather means “die Befähigung zur Aneignung und Entwicklung jenes Wissens, das für
erfolgreiches Handeln in veränderlichen Lagen und Kontexten […] erforderlich ist”*
(ibid., p. 200). Therefore, mobile microlearning can emphasise vocabulary learning
instead of teaching; the latter is too focused nowadays (cf. Nation, 2011).
3. Research design
The present paper is intended to investigate the effect of the use of podcasts on the
lexical acquisition of Italian as an L3. The following two groups of test subjects will
participate in the case study:
• Experimental group: students who learn the vocabulary with
the help of self-made (German – Italian) audio podcasts;
• Control group: students who learn the vocabulary without audio podcasts.
The case study tries to answer the following question: What differences in a) vocabulary
and b) used vocabulary learning strategies arise between students who learn the Italian
vocabulary with audio les, and those who learn these without audio les?
To answer this question – as part of the 4-month-pilot study** – written surveys
on vocabulary learning strategies and a vocabulary test have been used, as will be
presented in the following.
3.1. Written survey on vocabulary learning strategies
As an instrument of written survey the questionnaire was chosen (cf. Bortz & Döring,
2009, p. 236) to investigate the applied vocabulary learning strategies of the students.
It mostly follows the questionnaire designed by Neveling (2004) as part of her
dissertation. However, the questionnaire was adapted for this study and the scale was
changed from a dichotomous to an ordinal scale. At the beginning of the school year a
detailed version was used, at the end of the rst semester the questionnaire was reduced
and new aspects were included.
3.2. Vocabulary test
To state differences in terms of vocabulary between the experimental and control
group the “Vocabulary Knowledge Scale” (VKS) by Paribakht and Wesche (1997) was
chosen. Students can thereby assess a word presented in written form on a scale from
I to V, where I stands for full unfamiliarity of the given word, and V for the ability to
correctly use the word grammatically and semantically in a sentence. For the analysis,
this means that students are given a point for ticking Category I. If a semantically
* Translation: “the ability to acquire and develop the knowledge which is necessary for successful
behavior in varying situations and contexts, and in changing learning spaces”.
** The real case study will be carried out in the following school year (September 2012 – July 2013).
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Mobile Learning in Foreign Language Learning: Podcasts and Lexicon Acquisition...
appropriate and grammatically correct sentence was offered for the tested word, the
maximum of ve points would be given. For the present study with 30 Italian words,
this means that students can achieve a minimum of 30 points and a maximum of 150
points.
Basically the VKS assesses the development of vocabulary in the context of
experiments and seems to be a reliable and valid “measure of incidental vocabulary
acquisition […]” (Read, 2000, p. 135). The following chapters provide insights into the
pilot study and draw rst conclusions for the “real” case study.
4. Insights into the pilot study
The pilot study involved a total of 36 students, but only 30 students were present at the
time of the two data collections and therefore only their data was used.
Regarding the learning strategies, some differences, which have been proven by
SPSS using the Mann-Whitney U-test*, will be presented (cf. Unterrainer, 2012). At the
beginning of the school year the following differences between the two groups were
found:
• Speaking out loudly helps the experimental group signicantly
more (p = .029) to learn collocations (e.g., lavarsi i denti);
• The students of the experimental group signicantly more often call (p = .011)
the corresponding Italian words to mind when they observe their environment;
• The control group speaks signicantly (p = .018) more
often with Italian-speaking people on vacation.
At the end of the pilot study the following differences emerged:
• The students of the experimental group write two-column lists
more frequently (p = .015) than those of the control group;
• The students in the experimental group write signicantly
more often (p = .019) a sample sentence with the word;
• The copying of Italian words from the textbook is signicantly more
common (p = .041) in the control group than in the experimental group.
According to the reliability analysis with SPSS 18.0, the used VKS shows α = .96 and
is therefore located at the upper end of the scale, since in language tests values ranging
from .70 to .90 are accepted as reliable (cf. McNamara, 2008, p. 58). Before the study**,
the control group reached an average of 92.63 points, whereas the experimental group
* The Mann-Whitney U Test can – in analogy to the T-test – be used to elicit differences between two groups. Unlike the
T-test this is a non-parametric test that can be used from ordinal scale up and in the absence of a normal distribution
(cf. Raab-Steiner & Benesch, 2008, pp. 122-124), as it is the case with the small sample size of the study.
** In early October 2011.
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Eva Maria Unterrainer
scored 60.77. The control group performed signicantly (p = .001) better than the
experimental group. After the pilot study*, the control group has still a higher average
value (111.63), however, the gap between the two groups has reduced from an average
of 31.86 to 21.45.
5. Discussion and conclusion
First it has to be said that the majority of the students of the experimental group did not
create the audio podcasts. The reasons therefore are manifold, but mainly lie in the lack
of time of the students and the subjectively low liability because the students received
no grade for the project. Hence the results of the VKS have to be considered critically.
Furthermore, due to the difculty of nding teachers of Italian who are willing to
participate together in this project with their pupils, the study could not be carried out as
planned. Therefore, two teachers took part, which meant that different teaching styles
and schools came into play. These are additional intervening variables that could not be
prevented. Another weakness of the study is the difference between the groups when it
comes to vocabulary. As already mentioned, the students of the control group achieved
better results in the VKS at the beginning of the semester, but at the end of the semester
the experimental group was able to compensate because the results of the two groups
were closer together; however, the reasons for this could be manifold. For the full
study to be carried out another vocabulary test will be used as well as more tests each
time (cf. Nation & Webb, 2011) and different types of podcasts (e.g., videopodcasts).
Furthermore, the subjective learning progress of the students will be focused using
qualitative research methods.
Acknowledgements. I would like to thank the students participating in the study as
well as their teachers.
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