The Use of Mobile Applications to Learn English: an Empirical Study and a Proposal

Abstract

[eng] Smartphone applications are currently used in all areas of life, including education. People started to use apps to learn foreign languages, specifically English due to its increasing importance. This paper aims at establishing the profile of students who use apps to learn English, how these learners use the apps, and why. It explores whether the use of apps have advantages or disadvantages for learning English, and to what extent applications can substitute teachers. In order to determine the above-mentioned aspects, a survey was distributed to different sectors of society. Although respondents considered apps a beneficial tool to learn English autonomously, there are a great deal of drawbacks that should be taken into consideration. Therefore, this paper will provide a theoretical representation of an idyllic app taking into account the demands of the survey’s respondents.