Innovation in Language Learning

A CALL approach to ELT rests heavily on students' ICT skills. However, students' ICT skills have evolved over the last ten years, since the introduction of smart phones, influenced by locality, infrastructure, culture and development of new tools. Are students digital natives? Mobile natives? Other? How do teachers use the skills students bring to the classroom and compensate for those that they do not have? This poster presentation will report on interviews with six EFL teachers in a small college in northern Japan outlining their experiences, frustrations and successes in using CALL with students having diverse levels of ICT skills. It will also summarize recent research as well as the results of a two year study with Japanese university students on their use and preferences for ICT tools, as well as describing four Computer Literacy teachers' perceptions of changes in students' digital and mobile skills over the last ten years. Participants will also be invited to respond to an online survey of their experiences, frustrations and successes in using CALL and MALL with students in the country in which they teach.

Keywords: Smartphones, ICT skills, CALL;