Using Mobile Phones in EFL Classes

This article is to investigate the possibility that project-based classes introducing mobile phones can replace the monotony of traditional classes led by teachers as well as they can encourage students to take active part in the classes to some extent. The students in groups choose a genre for their own video projects (e.g., movie, drama, news, documentary, and commercial) and produce the video contents using a mobile phone for presentation made at the end of a semester. In the sense that the students are allowed to do video-based mobile phone projects, they can work independently outside of class, where time and space are more flexible and students are free from the anxiety of speaking or acting in front of an audience. A mobile phone project consists of around five stages done both in and outside of the classroom. All of these stages can be graded independently, including genre selection, drafting of scripts, peer review and revision, rehearsals, and presentation of the video. Feedback is given to students. After the presentation, students filled out a survey questionnaire sheet devised to analyze students' responses toward preferences and level of difficulty of the project activity. Finally, proposals are made for introduction of a better mobile phone-based project classes.