MOBILE LITERACY AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO INDEPENDENT LEARNING ACTIVITY

The requirements of the professional work environment are rapidly changing now due to the increased popularity and the necessity of educational computer and mobile innovations. Today employees are to encounter the world of innovations for their professional purposes and most of them are required to speak at least one foreign language. In this regard our research focuses on the relatively new teaching technology that combines both mobile skills and foreign language acquisition – mobile learning.

There are many approaches to language teaching, however, in most cases the gap between the language in class and the language in real life situations is evident. After finishing foreign language course learners may demonstrate mostly receptive skills as a result the usage of the second language with time becomes less productive. Therefore teachers should be oriented to a more efficient format of educational process and encourage their students to get interested in independent study. In this connection we highlight the crucial role of mobile learning the goal of which is supposed to provide independent learning activity. Mobile technologies are called to help learners improve and maintain the level of their language proficiency.

Mobile devices are widely used and it is easily explained by their convenience (people make use of them at any time and in any place they like). Consequently, these devices can become an effective language teaching tool that contributes to lifelong learning. Mobile literacy is considered today as one of the key competences that needs to be formed and developed with learners.

The target audience of our research was adult English language students who work in the sphere of economics. These were first- year students who had a three- year syllabus. We gradually integrated a special training mobile module in the traditional educational process and obtained encouraging results.