The purpose of this study was to ascertain the level of awareness and openness to mobile learning among English language teachers. The study was interested in determining the level with which English tutors were using mobile tools in learning and professional development and establish whether they are willing and able to utilize them. The survey collected information about the teachers’ existing access to mobile services and the kinds of device they were using to get access to mobile Internet.
The survey narrowed on issues such as what their perception on the role that mobile learning will play in the future of English learning, as well as analyzing the type of mobiles they owned and which types they intended to buy in the future and the reasons for their intended choices in relation to the learning process, if they used their mobiles as learning or teaching tool and if they could use free mobile learning content with their students.
The results indicated that majority of the sampled teachers had access to mobile internet services and were already using mobile resources for teaching and learning, while many planned to buy more advanced mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones. Many believed that mobiles had a greater role to play in the future learning and teaching.
The study may be utilized by phone and software application companies and organizations to create custom made mobile devises which are target teachers by understanding their market demand , solving and simplifying the limitations they encounter in m-learning. The educational institutions may also recommend to their teachers to also use m-learning to assist them in achieving their educational objectives.
The challenges to the use of mobile learning was in the form of the cost of connection fees and potential costs incurred by them and their students in the downloading academic resources via their hand-held mobile devices.
The conclusion of the survey showed that there was a clear and a commercially viable opportunity for any English language publisher wishing to invest in the development of mobile teaching and learning content material and resources in form of mobile software applications and hardware.
This study differs from the previous one by which used audio blogs in m-learning purposes while this study was more interested in the awareness and the application of m-learning devices by teachers and some of the challenges they faced.
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