Abstract:

With the rapid growth of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), the use of videos in the English language classrooms is but a common phenomenon. Nevertheless, the use of smartphone documentaries in aiding language learning is still largely unexplored. Unlike other regular videos or documentaries, smartphone documentaries are advantageous in that they can be easily reproduced, assessed, downloaded by students, as well as adapted by language instructors for language classroom use. The ease of use and adaptability of the smartphone documentary makes it a valuable tool for both learners and instructors. This study aims to gauge the effectiveness of the use on smartphone documentary in the teaching of English language forms and functions as well as find out the students’ opinions regarding the use of mini smartphone documentary in the language classroom. For the purpose of this study, a short smartphone instructional documentary entitled ‘Towards a Greener Office’ is designed especially to teach specific English language forms and functions in the oral communication classroom. It exposes to learners language forms and functions that are essential to enhance their communicative competence. It covers language skills including describing/talking about a specific topic, asking/answering questions, giving instructions, explaining processes, and expressing opinions. Data from questionnaires given to students in a pilot study on the application of this smartphone documentary in an Oral Communication in English class has indicated that the documentary has been able to encourage students to; use a variety of language forms and functions, understand the roles of speaker and listener, describe situations and processes, express their opinions, be more aware of their language choices, self-correct and improve their language.

Keywords:

Smartphone documentary, language forms and functions, MOOC, video.