Abstract:

The advancement of mobile technologies and their implementation in a language classroom have created a debate among researchers and teachers. The significance of the development of the language learning environment prior to introducing mobile technologies (Colpaert, 2004), vagueness of obvious benefits of a technology-driven approach (Salaberry, 2001), tremendous teachers' effort (Beatty, 2003), the comparison of mobile learning against computer-based instruction (Martin and Ertsberger, 2013), the benefits of mobile technologies in task-based learning (Kiernan and Aizawa, 2005), for vocabulary enhancement (Thornton and Houser, 2004) and for sustainable seamless learning (Looi, Seow, Zhang, So, Chen, Wong, 2010) have been investigated, the research of teaching grammar using mobile applications being scarce.

With the above-mentioned preconditions in mind, the following goal of the present on-going research has been formulated: to design customised grammar tasks for mobile applications and pilot them to English philology undergraduate students.

The research unfolds by exploring students' attitudes towards studying grammar using mobile applications by administering questionnaires. It continues by investigating the functionality of mobile applications Kahoot!, Quizlet a.o. and designing practice activities tailored according to students' needs, the closing stage being the comparison of students' progress to those with traditional deductive grammar instruction. The theoretical research framework of the study has been grounded in behaviourism and web-constructivism, considering Human Computer Interaction (HCI), i.e. the design process of a interface interaction for learners to engage with content in the mobile learning environment. The empirical research method is an exploratory case study. The obtained results highlight students' positive attitude towards the use of the mobile learning environment, the limitations concerning the range of the designed task types due to features of the mobile application interface and compare students' achievement against the classroom with deductive instruction.

Keywords:

Mobile applications, teaching grammar, task types, deductive instruction.