Exploring Chinese EFL Teachers’ Acceptance of Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL)

Abstract

Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) has emerged as an important domain since mobile devices are widely used by the current generation of learners. This study emphasizes that the successful implementation of MALL for language education relies heavily on its acceptance by teachers. This study intends to investigate the acceptance of using MALL for teaching English among college EFL teachers in China. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a frequently used model in technology acceptance studies for m-learning settings, was adopted in this study. A questionnaire survey was administered to collect data on teachers’ demographic information and acceptance of MALL. The respondents were 30 in-service college-level EFL teachers from universities in Yunnan, China, and the data are analyzed using SPSS. Respondents’ MALL acceptance level, their demographic variables associated with intentions to use MALL, and the relationship of Perceived Usefulness (PU), Perceived Ease of Use (PEU) with Behavioral Intention (BI) were investigated. The results suggested that Chinese EFL teachers have a rather high level of MALL acceptance. Their BI to use MALL differs according to the teaching experience. Both PU and PEU significantly influenced BI which further predicted the Actual Use (AU) of MALL. The findings of the study provide insights into the usefulness of TAM in predicting the acceptance of MALL among college EFL instructors and may assist in explaining the factors influencing their intentions to utilize mobile technology for language teaching.