Mobile Devices in Technical and Engineering Education with Focus on ESP

Abstract

Mobile devices have become widely accepted and exploited didactic means on all levels of education and in all subjects to appropriate extent, including foreign languages. This study focuses on their use within technical (i.e. bachelor) and engineering (i.e. master) higher education in Informatics and Management study programmes at the Faculty of Informatics and Management (FIM), University of Hradec Kralove (UHK), Czech Republic, particularly focusing on comparison of general subjects to English for specific purposes (ESP). Therefore, following questions were set to be researched: (1) What types of mobile devices do students possess?, (2) What purposes do students use mobile devices? and (3) What is students´ feedback after mobile devices implementation in ESP and other subjects is? The case study was exploited to describe the state in mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) at FIM and students´ feedback was collected by the questionnaire on this approach to teaching/learning. The results show Czech students are sufficiently equipped by mobile devices so that these can be implemented in the process of teaching/learning of all subjects, including ESP.