STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARD THE USE OF MOBILE LEARNING IN LEARNING ENGLISH

This study aims at investigating students’ perceptions toward the use of mobile learning (m-learning) in learning English and of the effects itself. This study uses qualitative as a framework for analyzing and collecting the data. The data were obtained from questionnaire and interview. The data were analyzed through transcribing, coding and interpreting. This study reveals that the majority of students have positive perceptions on the use of m-learning; students may easily access useful material by using mobile devices; m-learning help students increase flexibility of learning inside and outside classroom because they can easily get learning materials anywhere and anytime. Most of the students perceive that the use of m-learning can improve their English skills and enable them to independent learning.


INTRODUCTION
Education practitioners, nowadays, applies mobile phones as a learning media known as mobile learning. Mobile learning (m-learning), according to Iqbal (2017), is learning through a mobile device such as mobile or smart phone, iPods, MP3, players, and personal digital assistant (PDAs) delivered using mobile technology. Whereas, Al-Emran et al. (2016, cited in Homan andWord, 2013) specify m-learning as the technology that changes the way of the students communicate, interact and behave with each other and their perceptions toward their learning.
Mobile device awards an opportunity to carry knowledge and learning knowledge outside of the boundaries of the classroom, since students can interact with fellow students and teachers outside the classroom as well as capture the learning material using audios and videos options and bring the same into the classroom. Iqbal (2017) clarified the primary advantages of m-learning for tertiary education include fostering innovation in teaching and learning practices, enabling authentic learning, i.e., helping anytime, anywhere, students centered learning, offering an opportunity to students to benefit from web 2.0 technologies (social networking, mobility, podcasting, geo-location, connectivity, etc.), bridging the digital divide (since mobile devices are more affordable and widely owned by students) and moving toward a wireless computing paradigm from fixed, dedicated computing, thus, converting any space into potential learning.
Although m-learning is not new, it is only recently that government, educators and commercial enterprises have started taking serious interest in it. There are billions of users of mobile devices who use them for communication and other tasks but only minority of them uses these devices on a regular basis for education (UNESCO, 2012). Instead, mobile learning can be used as a media for learning. However, educators should be selective to use the kind of learning media or resources. Educators need to evaluate the learning resources.
There are many researches investigating mobile learning such as a research by Robi (2016) with the topic of Students' Perceptions toward the use of Podcast in Learning English: A Case Study of the Second Grade Students at One High School in Bandung. The study notes that students have a positive attitude toward the use of Podcast in learning English but there are also problems that the students encountered in using Podcast. A research by Tzu-Huang Weng & Yi-Ju Chen (2015) with the title Students' Perceptions toward the Use of Smart Phone applications for English learning. It shows that the tools can influence learning. Regarding to those researches, this study would investigate students' perceptions toward the use of mobile learning in learning English. with the following research questions: (1) What are students' perceptions toward the use of mobile learning in learning English? (2) What are the effects of using mobile learning in learning English?

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
One of the main causes of the effect of globalization is technology. Technology is becoming more developed especially in education and teaching process. In globalization era, teaching process is supported by technology such as mobile learning (m-learning).
According to Kraut R (2013) "Mlearning involves the use of mobile technology, either alone or in combination with other information and communication technology (ICT), to enable learning anytime and anywhere. Learning can unfold in a variety of ways; people can use mobile devices to access educational resources, connect with others, or create content, both inside and outside classrooms." Mobile learning also encompasses efforts to support broad educational goals such as the effective administration of school systems and improved communication between school and family. Xuen (2014) states "Mlearning is the experience and opportunity afforded by the evolution of educational technologies." In the learning and teaching process the teacher can use M-learning to enhance student's ability. The use of Mlearning should be appropriate to the material that would teach to the students. For the example to teach English, one of product of M-learning might be Hello English Application. This application can be applied to enhance students' ability in English.

The Benefits of Mobile Learning
Mobile learning allows many benefits and opportunities to reach students in different ways and to improve and personalize the education they are receiving. There are five benefits of Mlearning according to McQuiggan S. et al. (2015): 1. Ability to learn on the go 2. Reach underserved students and schools 3. Improve high-order thinking skills 4. Support alternative learning environments 5. Enable personalized learning The first is the ability to learn on to go. Traditionally, students are learning and sitting in the classroom around 7 hours; however, learning is not limited to a predetermined location and time. Learning can be done anytime and anywhere with mobile devices. The second is to reach underserved students and schools. The third is to improve highorder thinking skills. According to Ally, M (2009) "the partnership for 21st century skills has defined four key skills for students to master in school; they are critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration and creativity and innovation." The features of mobile learning inherently foster these complex skills set in students. The ability to easily share information with others, creatively utilized a wide variety of resources and critically evaluates the veracity and the value of sources are just a few examples of activities implicit to everyday use of mobile technology in education. The fourth is to support alternative learning environment. When teacher needs media to teach, he/she can use M-learning in teaching as an alternative learning environment. The fifth is to enable personalized learning. Personalized learning environments enable teachers to more easily target which students are struggling with which concepts and assign coursework and homework accordingly. Mobile technology makes this process more seamless, enabling effective implementation and tracking of student's growth.

Specific Evaluation Criteria of Mobile Learning
Specific Evaluation Criteria is a guide to evaluate learning resources. The purpose of this handbook is to expand upon the general criteria for selection of learning resources as stated in the Guidelines for the Evaluation and Selection of Learning Resources document, as well as to expound upon specific selection criteria in the areas of content, instructional design, technical design, and social consciousness. This research uses these specific evaluation criteria as a guidance to know students' perception toward the use of mobile learning in learning English. There are four headings as the criteria that have different points to one another as follows: 1. Content: content is current, content is accurate, content supports course or school curriculum, scope (range) and depth of topics are appropriate to student needs, the level of difficulty is appropriate for the intended audience, content integrates "real-world" experiences.
2. Instructional Design: Instructional goals and learner objectives are clearly stated, the resource is suitable for a wide range of learning/teaching styles, the resource promotes student engagement, the methodology promotes active learning, the methodology promotes development of communication skills, the resource encourages group interaction, the resource encourages student creativity, the resource allows/encourages student to work independently, he resource is suitable for its intended purpose, materials are well organized and structured, materials have unity/congruency, concepts are clearly introduced, concepts are clearly developed, concepts are clearly summarized, integration across curriculum subjects is supported, non-technical vocabulary is appropriate, technical terms are consistently explained/introduced, pedagogy is innovative, adequate/appropriate preteaching and follow-up activities are provided, adequate/appropriate assessment/evaluation tools are provided, text relates to visuals.

Technical
Design: Appropriate support materials are provided, visual design is interesting/effective, illustrations/visuals are effective/appropriate, character size/typeface is appropriate, layout is logical and consistent, users can easily employ the resource, packaging/design is suitable for the classroom/library, the resource makes effective use of various mediums. 4. Social Design: Gender/Sexual roles, sexual orientation

Student Perception
Perception is someone thought about something that they learn to measure how their attitude toward using something, whether they agree or not about that method or about something that they learn (Hong,.K-S, 2003). It means that students have their own opinions toward something they get from teaching learning process and how they react toward it. Sidhu (2003) states that students' perceptions are students' point of view toward something that happens in learning process and producing suggestion or argument for teacher or classmate to improve their learning process. The interview process can be so challenging and interesting experience for students' perception that can increase their awareness of a whole process of teaching as well as their own learning. From the definition above, students' perceptions is students' thought to response about what they have done or about what they have learned.

Hello English
Hello English is an English languagelearning application, which admits users learn English through interactive modules (Ally, 2009 Hello English is an M-learning application that helps and enhances users' ability in English.

METHOD
This study uses qualitative method to gain data and information. According to Gray (2012) qualitative research is the collection, analysis, and interpretation of comprehensive narrative and visual data to gain insights into a particular phenomenon of interest. Meanwhile, Margono (2002) states, "The qualitative was the process of the research that produced descriptive took the form of word or oral and behavior it could be observed".
The researcher chooses qualitative method because it is compatible with this research about "Students' Perceptions toward the use of Mobile Learning in Learning English" where the data are in form of words.
The subjects of this research are students at an informal English course with the level of Beginner 2. The writer chooses three classes with 10 students as participants. The students were chosen as participants because all of them are already recognizable with technology. All of the students did not have any experience in using Hello English for learning English before.
The researcher used two instruments to collect the data; questionnaire and interview. Questionnaire was the first instrument used in this research. It is compatible to investigate attitudes, perceptions and opinions based on Cohen et al. (2007). The type of the questionnaire is closeended questionnaire. To entire the questionnaire, the participants needed to mark predetermined answer that represented their feeling about the topic included in the statements in the scale. Cohen et al. (2007) said that the advantages of this type of questionnaire are permitting a researcher to easily compare responses across groups and quicker to code up. Closed type of questionnaires is used in this study. The questionnaires are in the form of Likert scale. This questionnaire was based on Specific Evaluation Criteria by PEI Department of Education (2008). The researcher use five scale for getting the data whether the respondents "Strongly Agree", "Agree", "Disagree", "Strongly Disagree" and "Not Applicable" for each statement in closed types.
The following formula was used to get the number of the percentage of the questionnaires; P = f/n x 100% P = Percentage F = frequency of each questionnaires answer N = Total participants To get the data, the researcher found the ideal score to determine rating scale and the total number of answers. The following formula was used to find the number of ideal score in every item: Criterion Score = Scale Score x Total Participants Scale Score: Strongly Agree = 5, Agree = 4, Disagree = 3, Strongly Disagree= 2, Not Applicable = 1 Total Participants; 10 Students of New Concept English Education Centre In this case, the biggest score is 5 and the total participants are 10, so it can be formulated to be as follows; The questionnaire was adapted from a book by PEI Department of Education (2008). Originally, there were forty seven statements in the questionnaire. In this research, the questionnaire was modified into forty two statements divided into four parts. All parts of the questionnaire were the statements which aim to investigate the students' perceptions toward the use of Hello English application.
Interview was used to collect data to support and clarify the data obtained from the questionnaire. The model of the interview was a semi structured interview. The aim of this model was to find the problems openly where the respondents were asked to give their opinions and ideas.
The interview was organized with ten students as samples which were recorded by a smartphone recorder. There were five questions in the interview. Some questions were attempted to make sure their perceptions, some questions were attempted to know the impact by using Hello English application. To avoid the misunderstanding and make the students answer the questions more easily, the questions were delivered in Indonesian language.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
Students' Perceptions toward the Content Content is one of specific criteria to evaluate learning resources. There are some points that join these criteria. The content should be accurate, current, support the curriculum, appropriate to the material that students need and integrate to the real world experience. The findings about the content were provided in the table below. It has interesting display, many exercises and easy to use." It indicates that the students have positive perceptions toward the content of this application.

Students' Perceptions toward the Instructional Design
Instructional Design is a practice of creating instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing. In these criteria, instructional design should have clear instruction, active learning methodology, the resource that encourages student creativity, etc. There are many similar application but I think this one is more interesting than others because there are many tools in this application." The results indicate that the students have positive perceptions toward the instructional design in this application.

Students' Perceptions toward the Technical Design
Technical Design describes the detail of all or specific parts of a design such as the signature of an interface, including all data types or structures required; detailed class models including all methods, attributes, dependencies and association; etc. Based on the table above, 42.31% students strongly agree to the technical design in this application. The results from questionnaire are similar to the results from interview. The similar results are placed in the two criterias (A wide variety of activities is included with the software and If provided, the on-line support is clear and useful). P-1 : "Yes, moderate. Because there are many exercises there" P-4 : "Yes, I do. There various exercise such as writing, listening, reading and so on." P-8 : "Yes, sure because it is not just for an exercise but there are also simple explanation about the materials." P-5 : "Yes, sure easy. I tried many parts, such as reading news and articles, listening to the audios, trying to speak at the conversation, and many more." P-7 : "In my opinion this is a kind of nice learning media. There is an online course that user can take to learn English. Highly recommended" The results indicate that the students have positive perceptions toward the technical design in this application.

Students' Perceptions toward Social Consideration
Social Consideration is a factor concerned with the interests of individuals, groups, communities and society as a whole. In these criteria social consideration should reflect sensitivity to gender and sexual orientation, the perspective of aboriginal people, and cultural and ethnic heritage. The findings about the social consideration are described in the table below.

The Effects of the Use of Mobile Learning
The data result gained from the answers of Q-4 (What is the effect you get after using Hello English application?) on the interview indicates a good response that Hello English give good impact for their English. P-4 : "There are many impacts that I get. I know new phrases, idioms, and vocabularies building. The games make me think faster. I think every exercise is challenging." P-5 : "It makes me want to practice again and again. Before, I have a poor pronunciation but then I know how to pronounce the words" P-7 : "I can improve my reading and listening skills." P-9 : "From Hello English, I can enhance my pronunciation." P-10 : "I get a lot of new vocabularies." The application help student increase their vocabularies, phrases, idioms, knowledge. It also enhances their English skill, such as pronunciation, reading and listening.
The aims of this study is to know students' perceptions toward the use of m-learning in learning English based on Specific Evaluation Criteria (2008) and to know the impacts of using m-learning in learning English.
The findings reveal that from all of the four main headings of specific criteria to evaluate learning resource shows that the students have positive perceptions toward the use m-learning in learning English. This statement is supported by Robi (2016) that students have a positive attitude toward the use of m-learning in learning English and it is assumed that m-learning can be a good tool in improving students' listening skill. This finding was supported by some studies in this related topic such as Hasan and Hoon (2013) with their review of twenty researches on the topic. The result of the review shows that most of the studies suggest that the students have positive attitude toward m-learning. Moreover, based on the interview, some students also agree that their English skills were enhanced by doing exercises in Hello English.
The findings also suggest that mlearning has brought a motivation for students in learning English. Hello English have exposed them with interesting topics and clear native pronunciation that makes learning more exciting. This finding correlates to a study conducted by Bolliger et al. (2010). He found that m-learning motivated students in learning English. The finding by Almaiah (2014) confirmed that students may access to lectures online by using mobile devices more easily and useful. The results also indicated that mobile learning help increase the flexibility of learning of both inside and outside classroom because the students can access learning materials anywhere and anytime.

CONCLUSION
The majority of students have positive perceptions on the use of m-learning.
Students may access useful material by using mobile devices easily. M-learning help students increase flexibility of learning, inside and outside the classroom, because they can easily get learning materials anywhere and anytime. Most of the students perceive that the use of m-learning improve their English skills and enable them to independent learning. It is expected that the students stimulate their own English skill by practicing a lot through this application of mobile phone , Hello English, in order to enhance, improve and develop their English skill.