Abstract:

In the present context of fast-evolving complex advancements of mobile technology, the education field has to adapt to the latest trends. Nevertheless, for education purposes, mobile tools are still in the first stages of their development. As of now, these types of applications only facilitate generic activities, including testing, problem solving, skills acquisition (Fowler, Mayes, 2004) with a focus on the instructor rather than on the student - due to their one-sided nature – which leads the instructor to evaluate the available mobile tools and imagine how these applications can blend with the pedagogical approaches such as the associationist, cognitive and situated (Mayes, de Freitas, Fowler, 2004) so that they accommodate the instructor’s goals to use this type of technology in the class.

From the perspective of the generic approach, the present paper aims at analyzing the efficiency of testing the mobile application Kahoot! used with the students from the Faculty of Chemistry. The testing was directed towards two major issues: the conditional (general English) and specific vocabulary (English for Specific Purposes), the choice of the application being not random as it offers a complex platform for building personalized tests and establishing the degree of difficulty, the timing for each answer and the layout for the testing process. The testing tool has been used as a mid-term test because the final test is still oriented towards traditional methods of testing.

The use of the Kahoot! testing tool has proved quite beneficial, easy to use, modern, close to the student, where students exercised not only English but also specialized terminology and mobile skills. Nonetheless, mobile developers have to work more on the improvement of the tools used for education purposes and applications such as Kahoot! represent a promising start.

Keywords:

Mobile learning, testing, generic education, ESP.