Mobile assisted language learning (MALL) has emerged as a potentially effective paradigm for the past two decades. However, the important question that still remains unanswered is its sustainability. The purpose of this research is to examine whether ...
Mobile assisted language learning (MALL) has emerged as a potentially effective paradigm for the past two decades. However, the important question that still remains unanswered is its sustainability. The purpose of this research is to examine whether individual learners would be able to conduct sustainable MALL at a tertiary level and how learner factors affect the sustainability. For this study, fifty three college students in Seoul were asked to conduct individual MALL with their mobile applications, posted their study logs, and interacted with one another on social media for twelve weeks. In this process, one of the researchers, as a facilitator and an active participant, assisted the students to study English with mobile applications on their own and encouraged them to post their study logs as well as to interact with one another on social media. For the qualitative analysis, this study collected students’ study logs, collaborative talks on social media, and conducted an open-ended survey. The findings suggest that individual students actively participated in individual MALL overall. With the intervention of the facilitator, students’ degree of participation at a social networking service (SNS) gradually increased. The large collection of students’ collaborative talks constructed collective knowledge, social trust, and a huge information resource which enabled students tosustain MALL individually. SNS seemed to foster a learning community which was a virtual place to enhance self-directedness of individual MALL learners.