Factors Affecting Tertiary EFL Students’ Use of Mobile-assisted Language Learning Tools to Practice Listening Skills

Nguyen Minh Tu, Tran Quoc Thao

Abstract


Listening is deemed one of the most crucial skills for EFL learners. Besides, with the emergence of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) tools in the digital era, there is a growing tendency for EFL learners to employ mobile devices as learning tools so as to practice their listening skills anytime and anywhere. This paper presents the findings of a study into ELF learners’ notions of the factors influence their employment of MALL tools for their listening practice. This mix-methods study was conducted at a university in Ho Chi Minh City. The study involved 155 EFL students in answering closed-ended questionnaires and 12 of them in participating in semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data were processed by SPSS version 20 in terms of descriptive statistics, whilst the qualitative data were analyzed by the content analysis approach. The findings revealed that participants believed teacher-related factors were the most significant factors in their deployment of MALL tools to practice their listening skills. On the contrary, it was found out that learning environment-related factors and learner-related factors performed a subordinate role in affecting ELF students’ use of MALL tools to improve their listening skills.

Received 25th July 2022; Revised 10th September 2022; Accepted 29th September 2022


Keywords


EFL Learners; Factors; Mobile-assisted Language Learning (MALL) Tool; Listening Skills

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1172/vjossh.v8i5.1699

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