Evaluation of challenges faced by the teachers and students of two further education insitutions when using the iPad in the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language Fujairah, United Arab Emirates

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the kind of challenges the teachers and students in the Foundations Program of the Fujairah Men’s College and Fujairah Women’s College faced in using the iPad to create tasks and activities designed to construct, support and promote the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. The study employed a case study design. The research participants were drawn from the teachers and students of the Foundations Program at FWC & FMC. The data for this research were collected by means of two online surveys involving the Foundations Program’s teachers and students, six class observations and five interviews of the teachers who conducted the classes. The study finds that the Foundations Program’s teachers and students faced challenges in using the iPad to create tasks and activities designed to construct, support and promote the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language. The findings of the study will contribute to the area of TESOL and mobile learning by its focus on the rich experience of two higher education colleges using the iPad as a teaching and learning technology in classes of Arab learners and by highlighting the challenges the teachers and students at these two colleges faced in their attempt to integrate the new technology in their context.