Mobile_Learning_for_Chinese

Literature Review Level CHEN I suggest to organizing the structure of the literature review with three levels. The review begin with the concept of M-learning, then deep into mobile phone assisted language learning and finally focus on the mobile phone with Chinese learning. The structure is summarized as follows: Part 1: M-learning Part 2: Mobile phone assisted language learning Part 3: Mobile phone assisted Chinese learning I’ve finished the literature review for my part. I’ve assigned a title revealing the subject and where it is suggested to be placed. The summarization is listed as follows. Chinese character learning characteristics (For Part 3) Fang(2005) developed a neural network based on Hebbian rule to learn Chinese grapheme and stimulate the learning process. While developing the learning process model the paper concerned some important issues with Chinese character learning. It is pointed out that one of the most interesting and important characteristic of Chinese characters is the semantic-phonetic compounds. That means, Chinese character is composed of two major components: the semantic part that gives information about the character’s meaning, and the phonetic part that gives partial information about the whole character’s pronunciation. The Chinese character consists with this feature are much easier to learn. Literature review on mobile phones assisted language learning (For Part 2) Nowadays, the mobile phones share some common features, including SMS text-messaging, voice-messaging, Internet access, cameras, and video-recording. People can take advantage the functions brought by mobile phones to assisting their language learning. There are some important researches and projects that study the usability of mobile phones in language learning. (Brown, 2001) is among the first projects using mobile phones in language learning. The language they focus is Spanish, and programs are developed to facilitate the research. The programs utilized both voice and email with mobile phones and contain common modules in language learning, such as vocabulary practice, quizzes, translations, and access to live talking tutors. Their results shows that automated voice vocabulary lessons and organized quizzes help students to master the language. On the other hand, live tutoring was also effective, but there are problems for comprehension caused by poor audio quality. Thornton and Houser (2002; 2003; 2005) also developed several innovative projects using mobile phones. They focus on the English language. One system focused on providing vocabulary instruction by SMS. The system emailed short mini-lessons to students three times a day. They conducted experiments to compare the learning effects of this method. Every two weeks, the students took test and the result was compared to other groups that received the same lessons but via the Web and on paper. The results indicated that the SMS students learned over twice the number of vocabulary words as the Web students, and that SMS students improved their scores by nearly twice as much as students who had received their lessons on paper. Students believed it to be a valuable teaching method and preferred the SMS teaching method. This research method becomes very popular. Levy and Kennedy (2005) followed a similar research process for Italian learners in Australia. While most of the researches introduced so far were concerned how to apply mobile phones to assisting language learning, Kiernan and Aizawa (2004) focused on whether or not mobile phones were useful language learning tools. They employed task-based learning concept in the study and design a language learning experiment. The assumption they held is second language acquisition is best mastered by completing tasks, requiring learners to close some sort of gap, which help the students to remember the meanings. They divided the upper and lower level Japanese university students into three groups: PC email users, mobile phone email users, and face-to-face speaking users. All the groups of students were given a pre-test, three narrative tasks, three invitation tasks, and a repeated post-test. The result was that the face-to-face group completed these tasks within the required time, but the other groups failed. The results indicated that the face-to-face speaking users had significantly faster performances, and the mobile phone email users and PC email users not very good. M-learning research status in China (For Part 1) It is showed that the mobile phone in China is more and more widespread in the past few years, especially among the students. Therefore, it creates a lot of opportunities for mobile learning. Wang et al. (2005) focus on reporting the technological success and the flow in mobile learning delivery at the E-learning Lab of Shanghai Jiaotong University(SJTU). The paper shows that mobile learning research is still limited in the first-level education. The research in the higher education is much popular and Shanghai Jiaotong University (SJTU) and Peking University are leading the trend in creating mobile virtual classrooms. The paper points out that an important problem is that he traditional teacher-centered curriculum is urgently in need of redesign in order to take the characteristics of mobile devices into account. Also, there is little research focus on the impact of mobile learning on students’ learning motives, course performance, and the results of learning, which still needs more efforts. M-learning Effect (For Part 1) Attewell(2005) summarize the m-learning project funded by the European Commission and the results indicated that mobile devices can be used successfully in learning. Compared to the traditional way of learning, mobile learning make anywhere, anytime, personalized learning possible. The report summarizes the positive contributions by applying mobile learning as follows:  Mobile learning helps learners to improve their literacy and numeracy skills and to recognize their existing abilities.  Mobile learning can be used to encourage both independent and collaborative learning experiences.  Mobile learning helps learners to identify areas where they need assistance and support.  Mobile learning helps to remove some of the formality from the learning experience and engages reluctant learners.  Mobile learning helps learners to remain more focused for longer periods.  Mobile learning helps to raise self-esteem.  Mobile learning helps to raise self-confidence. References Attewell, J.(2005). Mobile technologies and learning. London: Learning and Skills Development Agency. Brown, E. (2001). Mobile learning explorations at the Stanford Learning Lab. Speaking of Computers, 55. Stanford, CA: Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Fang, F.(2005). Self-organization, learning and language. Neural Network and Brain. 1906-1911. Kiernan, P.J., & Aizawa, K. (2004). Cell phones in task based learning: Are cell phones useful language learning tools' ReCALL, 16(1), 71-84. Levy, M., & Kennedy, C. (2005). Learning Italian via mobile SMS. In A. Kukulska-Hulme & J. Traxler (Eds.), Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Educators and Trainers. London: Taylor and Francis. Thornton, P., & Houser, C. (2002). M-learning in transit. In P. Lewis (Ed.), The changing face of CALL (pp. 229-243). Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets and Zeitlinger. Thornton, P., & Houser, C. (2003). Using mobile web and video phones in English language teaching: Projects with Japanese college students. In B. Morrison, C. Green, & G. Motteram (Eds.), Directions in CALL: Experience, experiments & evaluation (pp. 207-224). Hong Kong: English Language Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Thornton, P., & Houser, C. (2005). Using mobile phones in English Education in Japan. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 21, 217-228. Wang, M., Shen, R., Tong, R., Yang, F., & Han, P. (2005). Mobile learning with cellphones and pocketPCs. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Volume 3583.