Mobile technology as a tool to support the enhancement of students' communicative competence

Abstract

Mobile technology is an integral part of today's modern world. In developed countries people use mobile technology (smartphones or tablets) every day. This fact is reflected in education where mobile technology has become a widely used digital tool. Much of the existing research has focused on the relationship between mobile technology and knowledge acquisition, specifically the effect mobile technology has on knowledge retention, students' imagination and motivation or the comprehensibility of the subject matter. Considering the scope of the existing studies, a question arises as to how mobile technology helps improve key competencies. Key competencies form the basis of modern education, and their development prepares the students for their professional and social life. Communicative competence is one of the main key competencies. The paper presents the design of a research project aimed at determining the effect of the targeted use of mobile technology on the development of students' communicative competence. The first part of the paper introduces the topic and provides theoretical background on key competencies and mobile technology in education. The next part of the paper focuses on the research outcomes. Research will be conducted through an educational experiment where the authors will be comparing the control and experimental group outputs. The control group will be developing its communicative competence through activities that have already been used in class. On the other hand, the experimental group will be using alternative methods where mobile technology plays a key role in developing communicative competence. In this paper the authors define the research questions, research objective and research hypotheses. It also focuses on the target group and the research time frame. Furthermore, the authors introduce the research tools that will be used to determine the level of students' communicative competence. The third chapter focuses on proposed activities for the control and experimental groups. In the final part of the paper, the authors introduce possible research risks and limitations, as well as future research possibilities.