The Use of Mobile Assisted Language Learning for Vocabulary Acquisition in the English Classroom

Sammanfattning: The increased need for digital education in upper secondary schools of Sweden during the COVID-19 outbreak showcased that there is a lack of professional knowledge in regards to what tools to use in order to vary the experience for the students in a virtual teaching environment. In this paper, we investigate whether Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL) could assist English vocabulary acquisition of Swedish upper secondary students and what their attitudes are towards it. By finding and synthesizing studies that have been published on MALL in regards to vocabulary acquisition, we hoped to gauge the possible outcomes of applying it in Swedish classrooms as well. The majority of the analyzed studies showed positive results on both vocabulary acquisition and the students' attitudes. However, the methods of the experiments and the attitude questionnaires, along with the innate cultural differences, made us question whether we would see the same results in Swedish schools, but when considering the curriculum, the empirical evidence and learning theories, we still found enough relevancy and validity in the method to claim that MALL could work to assist vocabulary acquisition in the English classroom of Swedish upper secondary school.