英语论文网

Chapter 1 Introduction

　
1.1 General Research Background
As an important international language, English has gained much attention fromChinese Educational institutions of different levels in the past few years (Jiang,2009). According to the foreign language policy and the national curriculum, we canfind that English is taught as a foreign language and is one of the compulsorysubjects in China (Hu, 2007; Ministry of Education, PRC 2001). It enjoys a highstatus as one of the three core subjects — the other two are Chinese and Mathematics— which require to be taught in primary schools; in big cities, English lessons canbe provided from the third year (some even from kindergarten), and in all secondaryschools, through to university entrance examinations (Zhao, 2007). In China, a largenumber of colleges and universities regard general English as a compulsory coursein the first two years, and then college students may have English for specialpurposes, after that, even through to their final year. So every Chinese collegestudent has at least ten years of English learning experience (Hu, 2005a, 2005b;Zhao, 2008). In addition, English is an indivisible part of three compulsorygraduation examinations, which were needed for most students to progress insequence, first from junior school to senior school, then from senior school totertiary education and then from university first degree to postgraduate study (Hu,2005a, 2005b; Zhao, 2008). Generally speaking, proficiency in English is seen as akey to a great number of opportunities on a personal level: “to enter and graduatefrom university, to go abroad for further education, to secure desirable jobs in publicand private sectors, foreign-invested companies or joint ventures, and to be eligiblefor promotion to higher professional ranks” (Hu, 2005a: 6).

1.2 Research Orientation
The present study firstly intends to investigate the status quo of MALL amongcollege students, and then explores some factors which may influence collegestudents’ acceptance of mobile devices in foreign language learning. In order toachieve these goals, the author, based on TAM (technology acceptance model),proposes a theoretical model about the acceptance of mobile language learningdevices. Through conducting structure equation model, the author finds whichfactors and to what extent each factors influence the acceptance of mobile devices byverifying the proposed model. The objective of the present study is to contribute tothe understanding of factors influencing college students’ intention of mobiledevices acceptance or adoption in foreign language learning.

1.3 The Significance of the Study
Portable, immediate and collaborative learning environments or contexts whichprovide access to learning from any location or any time, as well as a diversity ofmobile devices have been introduced because of advancements in wirelesstechnologies (Shih, 2007). Though MALL presented many advantages, why learnerschoose (or do not choose) mobile devices is far from being completely understood;the factors influencing learners’ acceptance of mobile devices in foreign languagelearning have yet to be adequately explored. In fact, learners are the finaldeterminant of mobile devices usage. If learners do not accept mobile devices inforeign language learning, learners cannot perform their learning initiative in MALL,and the application of MALL i本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。