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Recent years have witnessed successful application of AR-based, Context-Aware Ubiquitous Learning (CAUL) for students to acquire English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Nevertheless, only a dearth of research is conducted to examine the effectiveness and learners' perceptions of student-led AR-based CAUL for enhancing students' English speaking proficiency. The aim of the research is to gain more understanding on the use of the design in the tertiary education for facilitating EFL students' oral proficiency. Both quantitative (pre- and post-test, and a questionnaire) and qualitative (a semi-structured interview) methodology were employed in the study. The results revealed that students' English speaking abilities were significantly developed after the activity; furthermore, the questionnaire also showed students' positive learning attitudes, with more motivation and satisfaction. In alignment with the quantitative results, benefits of the activity were also elicited in the interview. Finally, some suggestions for practitioners interested in student-led AR CAUL design were also provided.

Educational practitioners have attempted to use online technology such as Facebook (FB) in recent years to incorporate learning into students’ daily social media usage. Past studies have explored FB affordances for informal learning, with a lack of investigations on interactive patterns among course participants, especially for learners in East Asian contexts. To fill the research gap, this study adopts the community of inquiry model (CoI) in an attempt to find out (1) how interactions on a FB Group facilitate the formation of an online learning community in Taiwan, and (2) students’ and teacher’s experiences of using FB Group for English learning. Content analysis of the group page through thematic coding, and Chi Square tests resulted in significant relations among interaction types, initiation type, and response type for the posts. Semi-structured interviews further yielded more positive than negative experiences associated with the FB usage. The results are discussed in relation to three elements of the CoI, with an indication of a strong teacher presence for fostering the online learning environment in this particular learning context.

Context-aware ubiquitous learning (u-learning) is an emerging paradigm of e-learning, and it provides new educational practices for knowledge and skill development. This paper focuses on the identification and analysis of u-learning effectiveness to develop a learning design model to guide interested practitioners via phenomenological research method. The authors first examined 21 identified u-learning studies cited at least five times in the Web of Science to conduct the first step of phenomenological research method, bracketing the phenomenon. Later, the researchers followed the needed procedure of the phenomenological research method, including collecting interview data, identifying meaningful statements, giving meanings to those statements, and creating rich descriptions. The results demonstrate possible features of u-learning and the learning design model based the features to increase the learning effectiveness, and interested practitioners can apply the proposed learning design model proposed after the identification of learning effectiveness of the selected u-learning studies when constructing u-learning projects.

There has been little informal learning research concerning the issues and learning factors for students who are engaged in receptive language skills (reading and listening) development in a Context-Aware Ubiquitous Language Learning (CAULL) context. Therefore, the researchers first developed a CAULL environment for students to learn the surroundings of Cheng Kung Lake with the use of the handheld PDA, the wireless internet, and RFID readers and tags. There were three sections in the learning content about Cheng Kung Lake, including the reading units, scenario-based conversations, and RFID-generated Q&A in the reading and audio clips. Further, there were 47 intermediate-proficiency-level graduate students participating in this study. The results indicate that most students benefited from using this kind of CAULL and improved their receptive language skills, as well as demonstrate students' positive attitudes towards the implementation. Finally, design and development issues, affecting learning factors, problems and suggestions in such a CAULL environment were discussed.

This study obtained empirical evidence regarding the effects of using printed dictionaries (PD), pocket electronic dictionaries (PED), and online type-in dictionaries (OTID) on English vocabulary retention at a junior high school. A mixed-methods research methodology was adopted in this study. Thirty-three seventh graders were asked to use all three types of dictionaries to finish reading tasks, and then were tested not only immediately after the reading tasks, but also two and four weeks later. Questionnaires and interviews were used to examine the participants’ attitudes and reflections after using the three types of dictionaries. Results indicate that although electronic dictionaries (OTID and PED) temporarily attract junior high school students’ attention, PD helps them retain target words more effectively. Spending more time working with a PD apparently helped participants retain target words better. In contrast, the fast retrieval speed of an electronic dictionary might not impress the word forms and meanings onto junior high school students to such a significant degree. Electronic dictionaries could thus be used as a gateway to arouse students’ interest to use dictionaries, while printed dictionaries could be used to help students retain the word forms and meanings.