Students' Roles in Learning English through Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL): A Teachers' Beliefs View

Abstract

This study aims to explore teacher’s beliefs about students’ roles in learning English through MALL and the factors contributing to their beliefs. MALL which stands for Mobile Assisted Language Learning were the main instructional media where there was no such direct physical meeting in school. This media became popular nowadays, despite its emergence in the early 2000s, especially during Covid-19 pandemic which prevents both students and teachers to have direct physical meeting in the classroom. It was important to understand what role should be played by the students which in this research was viewed from teachers’ beliefs perspective. Therefore, the research questions formulated by the researcher were; (1) What are teacher’s beliefs regarding students’ roles in learning English through MALL? (2) What are the factors shaping their beliefs? In terms of methodology employed by the researcher, this research was qualitative with descriptive case study design. The subjects of this research were two teachers of Senior High School in Surakarta, Indonesia who were teaching English through MALL since 2017. The subjects were a Javanese male and Bataknese female who were 37 years old. Both of teachers had master degree from English Education Department. The instrument employed to acquire the data was interviews. The data then were categorized into the students’ roles based on the theories. The result indicated that four students’ roles became something that the teacher held as the truth. Those roles were participant, initiator, performer, and passive receptor. Meanwhile, the factors determining teacher’s beliefs were discovered five factors.