Development And Use Of An Android Tablet Application For Reading Practice In A University Efl Course In Japan

This paper reports on the use of an English-language reading practice application for an android tablet computer operating system with non-native speakers of English who were studying international affairs at a university in Japan. The application materials for vocabulary learning and reading skill development in reading-passage contexts were created to support the in-context learning of words which had been selected from a database of low-frequency and technical noun-verb collocations. The data base consisted of words which occurred frequently in documents related to the study of international affairs: thirty English-language annual reports of United Nations organizations found on official websites; and English-language annual reports and other articles from the websites of twenty international peace-building non-governmental organizations. The learning materials on the tablet computers were used in an EFL flipped-learning course, a type of blended learning which reverses the conventional arrangement of classroom lectures and outside-of-class assignments. The application was designed to support the learning of the meaning and pronunciation of the international affairs vocabulary by highlighting the target words in the reading passages. Based on the findings of students' evaluation of the course, it was concluded that the students strengthened their vocabulary knowledge, they enjoyed the reading activities with the mobile tablet computer outside of class, and they appreciated that the use of the reading texts on their mobile devices had merits that differed from reading practice in hard copy formats. In addition the students were interested in continuing flipped learning study.