How Mobile Are Top-Rated Mobile Language Learning Apps?.

A recent survey of top-rated mobile(-assisted) language learning (MALL) apps revealed four front-runners on the digital marketplace: three proprietary language course apps: duolingo, Babbel, busuu, and one flashcard/spaced repetition system (SRS): Memrise (Lotherington, 2017). The survey was followed by empirical studies of the embedded epistemological and pedagogical approaches to language in these MALL apps. Case study findings indicated that all four apps taught language through drills, and relied heavily on dated pedagogies and structural conceptions of both language and learning. This paper overviews the potential of mobility in MALL pedagogy, and examines whether and how these four top-rated MALL apps capitalized on the affordances of mobility in their pedagogical approaches and content presentation, concluding that mobility was used primarily for marketing and distribution rather than for innovative instructional design.