Investigating pedagogical challenges of mobile technology to English teaching

Digital education with mobile technology is becoming a global trend. This study considers language teachers' challenges related to open distance teaching in higher education. Twenty-eight university lecturers participated in the semi-structured interviews and expressed their opinions on how mobile technologies impacted the nature of teaching and learning in tertiary education. In particular, four themes associated with teaching English in the context of mobile technologies were discussed: (1) technology mediation, (2) disruptive pedagogy, (3) English teaching, and (4) learning flexibility. The results show that mobile technology and pedagogical innovation are not challenging for teachers. Instead, psychological anxiety, extended pedagogical roles, and learning flexibility are the challenging issues. Based on the results, a theoretical framework for digital education and a learning model for digital native students are proposed. This study suggests further work to promote pedagogy that connects students with higher-level thinking.