Article in Ñemit ỹ RÃ Revista Multilingüe de Lengüa Sociedad y Educación · January 021 doi: 10. 47133/nemityra010210 citations reads 693 authors

ISSN 2707-1642
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
111 
 
DISCUSSION 
 
New generations’ dependence on their social groups, their tendency to help each other 
and their need to achieve their goals and be successful (Borges et al., 2010) are aspects which 
app developers tapped into. Additionally, because of the importance of teacher-generated 
feedback, the capability of sharing students’ product is essential. Nevertheless, we found that 
only fifty percent of the reviewed apps place a lot of importance in the feature of sharing by 
letting users share their progress through social media. Some apps also take into account the 
current focus on goal achievement by offering stars or coins as a form of reward. 
Walker (2011, 2014) notes that feedback has to be effective in order to improve 
performance and result in better outcomes (32). Unfortunately, we found that in terms of 
feedback, most apps do not provide specific feedback or that the feedback provided is still 
very limited (see Table 3). This is especially evident with the apps reviewed that dealt with 
productive skills. On the other hand, receptive skills apps and grammar as well as vocabulary 
apps, were more efficient in providing feedback. We found that on average apps only 
provided what Brown (2015) refers to as cognitive feedback. 
As teachers are no longer the only source of information, this study aimed at finding 
efficient language skill apps for English teaching and learning (Babu and Dhanaraju, 2016). 
We found that most reading, listening, speaking, vocabulary and grammar apps reviewed 
offered the necessary input, interactive activities and feedback that allowed the learner to 
apply the concepts previously learned (Beetham and Sharpe, 2007). Only writing apps in this 
study fulfilled the characteristics of a tertiary app -supporting dialogue between learner and 
technology- since new content (students’ product) could be shared with peers or the teacher. 
According to app developers, app design and appeal are vital to capture the user’s 
attention and level of engagement (Lee &Cherner, 2015). In spite of in-app ads, most of the 
reviewed apps were able to comply with the need of an app to be appealing. Reading and 
Writing apps did not provide high quality design since high definition graphics or audio were 
not necessary. On the other hand, listening and speaking apps provided excellent audio 
quality. Vocabulary apps are the ones which excelled in terms of appeal since they provided 
high resolution images and sound as well as some kind of animation. 
Lee and Cherner (2015) as well as Walker (2011, 2014) acknowledged the importance 
of curriculum connection as a way to reinforce learning and improve students’ problem 
solving skills. We found that all apps reviewed, except for 
How to Speak Real English
, were 
strongly connected to the targeted skill. Some apps which had primary technology aspect, 
fulfilled the presentation, practice and production stages of the teaching process and for this 
reason can be, as Eaton (2010) claimed “used instead of books” (13). However, writing skills 
cannot yet be developed by using an app alone. 
According to Lee and Cherner (2015), one must focus on how diverse students are in 
terms of background knowledge and aptitudes, as well as different proficiency levels, when 
considering if a teaching material is appropriate for classroom instruction and in order to 
anticipate students’ needs. In terms of differentiation, only one app offered complete 
flexibility in terms of proficiency level, as well as topics. The rest of the apps provided 
flexibility in terms of either topic or proficiency level. 
Perhaps among the most important factors listed by Rhodes (2015) and that affect an 
app approval are: performance and user-friendliness. All the apps reviewed performed very 
well as it is clear that constant feedback provided by users allowed developers to work on 
solving minor issues. Because the apps we reviewed were rated highly, it can be said that 
these apps were ranked positively because of the lack of performance issues. Another factor 
that may cause user frustration is app ease of use or user-friendliness. Lee and Cherner (2015) 

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