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Emerging best practices for using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries
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Emerging best practices for using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries
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Running head: USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN TEACHERS 1
Emerging Best Practices for Using Offline Mobile Phones
to Train English Teachers in Developing Countries
Katherine C. Guevara
Policy, Planning, and Development
Price School of Public Policy
University of Southern California
August 2015
Dissertation Chair: Deborah Natoli, Ph.D.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 2
Acknowledgements
Thank you to my mother, Cherie FitzSimons-Orr, who has always made me feel like I am
beautiful, smart, and loved, told me that even my worst effort will be better than someone else’s
best, and reassured me that in a hundred years no one would remember what I considered to be
today’s painful mistakes. She granted me a green light on everything I wanted to do, providing
me with innumerable opportunities. Because of her patience and sacrifice, I was allowed to be
free to selfishly explore and escape to more than 60 countries on 5 continents of the world. That
wanderlust led me to my two life passions: teachers in the developing world, and my husband.
My mother inspires me to be generous, compassionate, and strong.
Thank you to my husband and better half, David Ricardo Guevara Rosillo, who told me
to just keep going whenever I wanted to quit, reminded me that I am both his beauty and “the
machine”, and kept me mentally and physically alive by listening, soothing, drying tears,
cooking, washing up, and running the house and garden. Because of our work together in
educational television when we first met in Ecuador, I was inspired by how video and television
could provide English language learning cost-effectively, at scale, and at a distance. That
experience with him changed my life and shaped my research. My “amorcito” inspires me to be
driven, patient, and grateful.
Thank you to my late father, Charles B. FitzSimons, who let me know early he would not
have to worry about me, instilled a love of learning, studiousness, humor, and storytelling, and
was first to teach me that others were not as fortunate, and suffered hardships from war, famine,
and disease. Because of his example, I embraced the mantra that to whom much is given, much
is required. Because of his death, I have lived my life striving to make him proud by channeling
him in my decision-making to become as smart and good as he was. My father inspires me to be
curious, humble, and just.
Thank you to all the educators I have met and worked with in developing countries for
teaching me how to do more with less, do it better and enjoy it, stretching creativity in teaching
by defying the boundaries of imagination, and persevering in resource-poor, remote,
marginalized, dangerous, disadvantaged, and unhealthy conditions to enable learners to thrive.
Because of my global colleagues, this dissertation exists to democratize access to their
professional development. These educators inspire me to be practical, innovative, and vocal.
Thank you to my committee at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Dr.
Deborah Natoli, chair, from the Price School of Policy, Dr. Robert Filback from the Rossier
School of Education, and Dr. Robert Keim from the Ostrow School of Dentistry and Rossier
School of Education, for their generosity of time, dedication, support, kindness, and feedback.
Because of their guidance, I have produced an advance in practice for which I have earned the
distinguished title of doctor. They inspire me to be solid, collaborative, and heard.
Thank you to God, my Creator, for my life and the daily chance to do something good
with it in service to others. Make me a channel of Your peace.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 3
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction 5
Introduction 5
Background 6
The Problem 8
Need for the Study 10
Research Question 13
Glossary of Terms 15
Summary 18
Chapter 2: Literature Review 20
Introduction 20
Open and Distance Learning 20
Open and Distance Learning Defined 20
Open and Distance Learning for Teacher Education 22
Mobile Learning 24
Definitions of Mobile Learning 25
Theories of Learning for the Mobile Age 27
Advantages of Mobile Learning 28
Disadvantages of Mobile Learning 28
Mobile Learning as Open and Distance Learning for Teacher Education 28
Research Gap in the Literature 29
Trends in the Field of Mobile Learning 31
Summary 32
Chapter 3: Methods 34
Introduction 34
Systematic Review: The Methodology Defined 35
Cochrane Collaboration, Campbell Collaboration, and EPPI-Centre 35
Grey Literature in Extended Systematic Reviews 38
Strengths and Weaknesses of Systematic Review of Grey Literature 39
Protocol and Existing Models Used 40
Case Study Methodology 41
Search for Studies 42
Sifting and Selection of Studies 44
Extraction and Assessment of Data 44
Summary 45
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion 47
Introduction 47
The Four Cases 48
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 4
“English in Action” Bangladesh Project Findings 48
“English Teacher” Nigeria Project Findings 50
“SMS Story” Papua New Guinea Project Findings 52
“Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines Project Findings 54
Discussion of Findings: Emerging Best Practices from the Project Comparison Matrix 56
Limitations of the Study 61
Summary 63
Chapter 5: Recommendations 64
Introduction 64
Recommendations for Project Demographics 65
Recommendations for Project Partners 66
Recommendations for Project Content 67
Recommendations for Device Used 69
Recommendations for Project Cost 70
Recommendations for Potential Results and Further Research 72
Recommendations for United States Government Involvement for Scaling-up 76
Conclusion 78
References 81
Appendix A 99
Figure 1: Publication trends in research on using mobile devices to
train teachers
Table 1: The 37 existing studies on mobile learning and teacher
education
Appendix B 103
Figure 1: Systematic reviews—what authors do
Appendix C 104
Table 1: Project comparison matrix
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 5
Chapter 1: Introduction
Introduction
Since mobile phone ownership and use saturate the developing world, teachers there
could use their mobile phones to receive teacher training as distance education (West & Chew,
2014). There is a shortage of teachers in developing countries (UNESCO, 2008; Danaher &
Umar, 2010), which means more teachers need to be trained and put to work as quickly as
possible. Furthermore, existing teachers may never have received training before becoming
teachers, nor receive professional development while serving as practicing teachers (Hayes,
2014; Power, 2012). Additionally, many developing countries demonstrate a focus on English
education, driving the need for trained English teachers specifically (Kaleebu, Lee, Jones, &
Watson, 2013; Hayes, 2014). Globally, teachers have learned to be teachers at a distance for
decades, from early correspondence courses to radio, television, and online courses, to the new
era of mobile distance learning, which includes receiving training on mobile devices like a
mobile phone (Burns, 2011; UNESCO, 2001). However, the challenge remains that the vast
majority of mobile phones used in developing countries lack Internet connectivity (Horton,
2012), requiring creative solutions for how best to deliver teacher training content to offline
mobile phones. While demand for training exists, and the prevalence of mobile phones
exists, projects for using offline mobile phones to train English teachers that have been brought
to scale and result in rigorous, published findings do not readily exist (Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, &
Watson, 2013; Power, 2012;Walsh, 2011).
Using qualitative case study methodology of project documents found through
conducting an extended systematic review, this study compares themes and categories of four
projects, “English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 6
Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines, that used offline mobile phones to train
English teachers in developing countries, proving that those who are still waiting for Internet
connectivity to reach them do not have to be left behind. The aim of this study is that a
comparison of the themes and categories of these four projects will provide promising practices,
leading to best practices, for this burgeoning field of using offline mobile phones to train
teachers in response to a gap in the research and pressing global need. These practices are
particularly valuable because they can be applied in other fields as well, since they provide
models that can be used no matter the mobile phone, with or without Internet. Other sectors and
domains, from global health to microfinance, could utilize these practices to scale reach and
provide training.
To understand why best practices for using offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries are most urgently needed, one must start with some
foundational background knowledge of the conditions that make teacher training such a pressing
matter in the developing world, and how mobile phones could be used to address this massive
demand. Next, one must grasp the severity of the problem by knowing about the lack of projects
that have reached scale trying to use mobile phones to train teachers in developing countries, and
the subsequent gap in rigorous, published research on their best practices. Finally, out of the few
projects that do exist, comes the research question driving this study and setting the stage for
subsequent chapters.
Background
The story starts with a global teacher shortage, and UNESCO estimating a need to recruit
and train 10 million teachers by 2018 in order to replace retiring teachers, ensure universal
primary schooling, and begin to address the challenge of secondary schooling, especially in
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 7
Africa and South Asia (UNESCO, 2008; Danaher & Umar, 2010). While access to schooling
has increased globally, achievement of pupils has not (UNESCO, 2004; Danaher & Umar, 2010),
and this achievement gap is directly related to teachers’ training because well-trained teachers,
receiving training that focuses just as much on practical classroom realities as on theory, are the
essential element for providing education quality. Hayes (2014) adds that the quality of teaching
has the most influence on learner achievement, and it is therefore necessary to understand and
share examples of practice in innovations in continuing teacher professional
development. Power (2012) summarizes the situation, “It is clear that in poor rural communities
across Sub-Saharan Africa (as well as many areas across South East Asia and South America),
there is a pressing need to increase both the number of teachers and the quality of teaching (p.
369).”
The situation is no different for global teachers of English in that teacher training
institutions in the developing world cannot meet the needs of English language teachers (Hayes,
2014). Furthermore, because existing in-service provision of professional development for
English teachers often occurs en masse and away from teachers’ school sites, they may take little
practical value back to their classrooms (Hayes, 2014).
While there is a pressing global need for training new teachers through pre-service
initiatives, there is an equally urgent need for training current teachers, including English
teachers, through in-service initiatives. Hayes (2014) cites an “overwhelming need” (p. 228) for
in-service teacher training focused on the developing world, and explains how traditional teacher
training institutions lack the capacity to deal with the scale of teacher preparation needed for
new teachers, to say nothing of updating the skills of in-service teachers. Power (2012) agrees
that current teacher training centers are not capable of responding to this challenge, citing a
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 8
“pressing need to identify, design and implement alternative approaches that can operate at
sufficient scale and pace, and are proportional to the need (p. 374).” The alternative approach
investigated here is using offline mobile phones to scale the provision of teacher training,
whether pre-service or in-service, for English teachers.
The Problem
Since not many projects that use mobile phones to train teachers have reached scale in
developing countries (Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, & Watson, 2013), there is a resulting lack of
literature in the field (Power, 2012). Most projects lack research rigor, and/or are small, pilot
projects, creating the need for more projects with sound research practices that make data and
outcomes publicly available (Watson, 2012). In describing its Teacher Development with
Mobile Technologies Project in four countries, UNESCO (n.d.) confirms that most mobile
education projects specifically aimed at teacher enhancement have also remained in pilot phases
and never gone system-wide, creating the need for a mobile technology solution for teacher
training that can be integrated at the national level. Baran (2014) sought to compile the only
known review of research on using mobile devices for teacher education and found only 37
published articles (See Appendix A, Table 1). Walsh’s (2011) criticism of the literature
specifically mentions the developing world context, stating: “Large-scale technology-enhanced
teacher-professional development on mobile phones in emerging economies...is a promising field
whose applications are context specific and largely absent from the literature (p. 145).” While
there are a handful of international, large-scale examples of teacher professional development
delivered through mobile phones (UNESCO, 2012; Hayes, 2014), these cases require the
teachers to have internet-enabled mobile phones of which the higher costs “limit access to the
vast majority of teachers and learners” (Hayes, 2014, p. 232).
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 9
Given the lack of appropriate models, governments and their ministries of education, as
well as large-scale, international English teacher training initiatives like the U.S. Peace Corps
and U.S. Department of State English Language Fellow program working in developing
countries, may not know how to meet the challenges of scale and access (Power, 2012) to
determine policies and best practices for using non-internet-enabled mobile phones to train
English teachers, among other potential educational uses.
Using non-internet-enabled mobile phones, or simply offline phones, which are mobile
phones that either cannot or will not be connected to the internet, to train English teachers is
situated under the broader concept of distance education for teachers. Complaints about a lack of
evaluation data coming out of case studies on open and distance education for teachers have been
around for over a decade, with UNESCO (2001) reporting on the likely causes being: “...lack of
funding, or time, or an education tradition and structure which leaves the evaluation of
programmes to another division or institution. In others it results from a lack of a research
culture and skills in evaluation (p. 27).” Thus, researchers were unsure if projects simply were
not collecting the data, or were collecting it, but did not want to reveal it. Thus, more than ten
years later, updated complaints about a lack of research on distance education for teachers only
get more specific: “There is a dearth of large scale, empirical studies into the efficacy of mobile
cellphone technologies for in-service teacher education (p. 51)” (Zawacki-Richter et al. 2009;
Danaher & Umar, 2010).
Wagner (2014) sheds light on the unique challenges of researching information
communication technologies (ICTs), like mobile phones in education, stating that the technology
in use, whether hardware or software, changes so rapidly that it could no longer be relevant to a
study come evaluation time, adding to the difficulty of designing and understanding how to use
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 10
mobiles for high-quality interventions. “To date, ICT for learning resembles other areas of
educational reform: a fairly long period of trial and error, followed by slow and incremental
changes as the research base develops” (Wagner, 2014, p. 11). This study seeks to develop the
research base by assembling, comparing, and analyzing promising practices of existing projects
using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries to deduce best
practices and recommendations for the burgeoning field.
Need for the Study
The four projects using offline mobile phones to train English teachers that are reviewed
for this study, “English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua
New Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines, cite specific examples of importance and
urgency for training English teachers, and using offline mobile phones to do so. Namely, these
projects state the need for: combating low levels of English literacy, learning English for
economic prospects, and finding local technology solutions to cope with massive teacher training
for in-service English teachers.
The fact that many children in low-income countries are not acquiring basic reading
skills, such as almost half of adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa who cannot read or write (Van
Fleet, Watkins, & Gruebel, 2012; Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, & Watson, 2013) weakens economic
growth (Gove & Cvelich, 2010; Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, & Watson, 2013). Acquiring basic reading
skills translates to better health, more money, safer and more stable democracies, and poverty
reduction (UNESCO, 2006; UNESCO, 2011; Kaleebu, Gee, Jones & Watson, 2013). However,
for SMS Story in Papua New Guinea, most lower primary children do not have sufficient reading
skills in English, and on average, could read just 37% of a simple text (Kaleebu, Lee, Jones, &
Watson, 2013). For English Teacher in Nigeria, the country has one of the highest adult illiteracy
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 11
rates in the world because 42% of primary age children are not in school, and those in it are
struggling with basic literacy and numeracy (UNESCOPRESS, 2013).
In Papua New Guinea, like many countries, the language of instruction in future will be
English (Kaleebu, Lee, Jones, & Watson, 2013). For English in Action in Bangladesh, the
government attaches importance to and invests in learning English since it is valued as an
economically powerful language as a useful, marketable skill for the digital economy, but a lack
of English-speaking workers is a barrier for development of this sector (Hayes, 2014). Even
with the support of international funding agencies, “the level of English language competence
among students and their teachers is often low” (Hayes, 2014, p. 211). This could be a result of
the fact that most secondary-level teachers have no professional preparation and/or no degree in
English (Hayes, 2014). Some currently undeveloped economic sectors have the potential for
major expansion that would be accelerated by the availability of English-speaking workers. In
particular, jobs in the digital economy, where English is widely used, are a key part of the
government’s growth strategy for Bangladesh, but lack of proficiency in English has been
identified as a major barrier for the development of this sector (Hayes, 2014). Interestingly, for
Text2Teach in the Philippines, teachers with the longest time in service (21 years or more
teaching) scored the lowest in not only English, but also Math and Science, and overall scores of
teachers who were tested fell short of the set English standard, scoring below 75% correct
(Natividad, 2007). As project evaluators noted, “Clearly when teachers themselves are unable to
reach the acceptable standard of performance for the grade level the repercussions on teaching
and learning in the classroom are immense” (Natividad, 2007, p. 46).
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 12
For finding local technology solutions to cope with demand and need for training more
than half a million primary school teachers, Mark West, a UNESCO project officer for English
Teacher in Nigeria (UNESCOPRESS, 2014) explains:
Because a majority of Nigerian teachers own or have access to a mobile device, an
educational service that utilizes these devices has the potential to reach not just
thousands but tens of thousands of teachers. This wasn’t possible before. The rapid
uptake of mobile technology in Africa has made it realistic to reach teachers who
were, practically speaking, unreachable just a few years ago. It is exciting work,
and we hope the project provides a model others borrow, emulate and improve
upon.” (para. 10)
Similarly, for SMS Story in Papua New Guinea, the partnering volunteer organization
states: “...no one has ever done this anywhere else in the world” (VSO, n.d., para. 9) The project
was possible because mobile phone coverage in Papua New Guinea now reaches the majority of
the population, even those in remote and rural areas (Watson, 2011; Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, &
Watson, 2013). Many teachers now own or use mobile phones and have owned them for more
than two years (Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, & Watson, 2013). For English in Action in Bangladesh,
barriers that lack of access to, or unfamiliarity with technology create, often go ignored for
teachers who have no or undependable electricity, large classes, and only a blackboard
(UNESCO, 2012; Hayes, 2014). For example, West and Chew’s UNESCO (2014) report on
mobile reading in developing countries states only 40% of the world is online with only 7% of
African households online compared to 77% of European ones.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 13
Research Question
As with Baran (2014) and Danaher and Umar’s (2010) qualitative research on mobile,
open and distance learning for teacher training, the intent of this research is not to prescribe a
single, particular curricular approach, content, or form of teacher education for English teachers,
which is best left to informed ministries of education in sovereign nations to decide, but rather to
investigate and report on current practices in its offline mobile delivery. Since both a lack of
literature and an urgent need exist, time is of the essence for providing promising practices to
date and using them to inform recommendations. To that end, the main research question for this
study is: What are the common themes and categories evidenced in four projects (“English in
Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New Guinea, and
“Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines) using offline mobile phones for training English teachers in
developing countries? A secondary research question emerges from the first as: Given found
commonalities of these four projects using offline mobile phones for training English teachers in
developing countries, what promising or best practices, and recommendations can be deduced?
The main research question designates a qualitative approach, and is purposefully narrow
in scope and open-ended at the same time, lending itself to a qualitative approach. The
secondary research question depends on findings from the first, and assumes that commonalities
are positive features pointing to promising practices that lead to best practices. The audience for
this research, meaning those that would be interested in the answers to the research questions,
include: those implementing a project using offline mobile phones for training English teachers
in developing countries; those implementing other educational projects in developing countries
using offline mobile phones; governments, ministries of education, and aid organizations in
developing countries, or in rural, marginalized, and impoverished areas of the developed world,
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 14
where mobile internet connectivity is a concern; private and public sector donors, and mobile
education researchers and policy makers.
Findings from, and mentioned in, West and Chew’s UNESCO (2014) Reading in the
Mobile Era report on mobile reading in developing countries influenced the research questions,
helping to narrow the research in two critical ways. First, mobile phone delivery, opposed to
other types of mobile and handheld devices, was chosen because 2013 United Nations data
shows more than 6 billion of the estimated 7 billion people on Earth have access to a working
mobile phone (West & Chew, 2014). While this leaves 1 billion without mobile phones, it still
makes mobile phones “the most ubiquitous ICT in history” (West & Chew, 2014, p. 16). Mobile
phones were also chosen by heeding Trucano’s (2013) ten principles to consider when
introducing ICTs to remote, low-income educational environments, including: the best and most
sustainable technology is the one people already have, know how to use, and can afford because
it is the content and not the flashy container that matters most. Horton (2012) supports this
claim, stating that learners prefer a device they already know, love, and carry, even over a new,
freely-provided one, because mobile devices are personal. Furthermore, Trucano (2013) cites
the Matthew Effect that those who are most likely to benefit from the introduction of ICTs into
education are exactly the ones that do, conferring more advantages on the already advantaged,
and making designing projects for the most challenging needs of the poorest recipients a better
approach.
Second, offline mobile phones, opposed to phones connected to the Internet, were chosen
because of technology available to support them, meaning “mobile internet in some regions,
particularly rural and geographically isolated areas, may be so spotty or slow as to render it
unusable” (West & Chew, 2014, p. 81). For example, one study shows that only 2% of women
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 15
living on less than $2.00 per day had ever used mobile internet services (GSMA mWomen,
2012; West & Chew, 2014). Hayes (2014) cautions that: “Balancing low-tech reality with
efficient and easy-to-use high-tech solutions, which are both sustainable and scalable, remains a
challenge” (p. 227). Therefore, low-tech reality needs to be considered instead of importing
higher-tech solutions that are not already in use by the target group. Perraton (2010) echoes this
sentiment, stating: “The extent to which it is practicable to use the more sophisticated
communication technologies depends on the state of development of the technology within the
country concerned” (p. 9) Trucano (2013) also discusses how tech solutions are often imported
from the developed world and made to fit less developed contexts. From the design perspective,
Horton (2012) recommends foregoing using features that are not widely available on the devices
owned and used by learners. Therefore, existing mobile phone technology, capability, and use,
which is predominantly offline, form the backbone of this research.
Glossary of Terms
The research questions for this study include five key terms that warrant background
information in the form of definitions and clarifications: developing country, English teacher,
offline mobile phone, promising or emerging practice, and teacher training. Some of these terms
are easily specified by the author because they are unique to this research, while other terms
prove more challenging to describe due to the prevalence of competing, debated, or changing
definitions. Therefore, the following descriptions and explanations of these five terms, presented
in the form of an alphabetized glossary, are provided here to assist the reader.
Developing country. For the purposes of this study, the World Bank definition of a
developing country is used, meaning a country with low or middle incomes, with income being
measured as gross national income (GNI) per capita in U.S. dollars and countries classified every
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 16
July 1 (World Bank, 2015). This definition does not imply that all countries classified as
developing are at the same level of development, nor that there is a preferred or terminal stage of
development (World Bank, 2015). The researcher is aware this is a controversial moniker and
definition, and is open to other commonly-used synonyms and similar classifications, such as:
emerging economy, lower developed country, less developed country, and less economically
developed country (LEDC).
English teacher. For the purposes of this study, an English teacher carries the unique
and specific definition of a man or woman of any age, who is a non-native speaker of English,
who has received no or any level of formal education and no or any level of professional
training, living in a developing country, preparing to work or already working for any length of
time at a physical school of any kind (i.e. public, private, religious, etc.), to teach at least, but
perhaps not only, English of any kind (i.e. British English, American English, etc.,), to students
at any level.
Offline mobile phone. An offline mobile phone is a term invented by the researcher
particularly for this study, due to the fact that the line between what makes a mobile phone a
feature phone, also referred to as a “dumb phone” (Hixon, 2012, para. 1), and what makes a
mobile phone a smart phone has become blurred (Bisson, 2014; Lee, 2010). It is no longer
possible to say that a feature phone lacks internet connectivity or that all smart phones are used
to access the internet. For this study, an offline mobile phone is likely to be a feature phone.
A feature phone is “A cellphone that contains a fixed set of functions beyond voice calling and
text messaging, but is not as extensive as a smartphone. For example, feature phones may offer
Web browsing and e-mail, but they generally cannot download apps from an online marketplace”
(PCMag Encyclopedia, 2015, feature phone definition). Furthermore, a mobile phone with
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 17
wireless internet technology either has CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) or GSM (Global
System for Mobile), which represent different kinds of radio systems that a wireless internet
provider chooses from, with the CDMA used widely in the United States and GSM used in most
of the rest of the world (Segan, 2015). However, a feature phone owner technically does not
have to purchase a data plan if wireless internet will not or cannot be used. In this study, the
term mobile phone is a synonym for cell phone and handset, and means that the phone can make
and receive calls and text messages (Fraser, 2012).
Promising or emerging practice. This study uses the Learning for Action (2011)
group’s definition of promising practice to distinguish it from emerging. A moderate level of
evidence for effectiveness, stemming from a project’s experimental design of weak to moderate
rigor, literature review, manual, logic model, or evaluation plan, can be found for practices
deemed promising, while a low level of the aforementioned evidence lacking high or moderate
external validity can be found for practices called emerging (LFA, 2011). For this study, both
the terms promising and emerging refer to the idea that best practices for the field of using
offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries are in a nascent stage of
development. This nascent stage of development means that even though project data may show
positive outcomes, there has not yet been enough research or replication to support
generalization of best practices, leading to a call to action for contributing to the known list of
projects using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries and their
eventual resultant best practices.
Teacher training. The term teacher training, which often refers to teacher preparation
that occurs only during pre-service, and the term professional development, which often is used
for in-service teachers, as well as for development of teacher educators (teachers of teachers), are
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 18
both used synonymously in this study. Day’s (1999) broad definition of professional
development, is taken as a synonym for teacher training and teacher professional development,
and includes the process by which teachers “acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skills
and emotional intelligence essential to good professional thinking, planning and practice with
children, young people and colleagues throughout each phase of their teaching lives” (Hayes,
2014, p. 5). While all case studies used for this research focused on delivering in-service
training that was merely the nature of the findings and not a delimitation of the research. Any
project focused on using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries
were considered, no matter the type of teacher training or professional development, pre-service,
in-service, or teacher educator.
Summary
There is a shortage of and demand for trained teachers, particularly English teachers, in
developing countries and evidence that mobile phones could be used to provide teacher training
for them. Since infrastructure and costs largely prohibit mobile phone owners and users in
developing countries from connecting their phones to the Internet, creative solutions are needed
for providing teacher training content to offline mobile phones. However, there is a gap in the
research for projects that reached scale and reported process and findings on using offline
mobiles phones to train English teachers in developing countries. Of the few projects that exist,
comes the research question driving this study, which is to examine the common themes and
categories evidenced in four specific projects, “English in Action” Bangladesh, “English
Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines in
order to determine promising and best practices for using offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries. The next piece of background knowledge required to
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 19
understand this study better can be found in the literature review, which discusses the fact that
educating teachers at a distance is nothing new, and how mobile phones can become the
technology through which teacher education can now be delivered at a distance.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 20
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Introduction
To situate and contextualize the topic of using offline mobile phones for training English
teachers in developing countries, it proves necessary to review the literature on (1) what open
and distance learning is and how it has been used to train teachers; (2) what mobile learning is,
the leading theory of learning in the mobile age, and advantages and disadvantages of mobile
learning; (3) what the hallmark studies are, and gaps in the research, for mobile learning for
teacher education, and (4) where the field of mobile learning is trending before these trends
become obsolete, a known danger in technology-based research. Thus, an attention to including
the most current literature to date is essential for the field, and the researcher makes every effort
to include sources no more than five years old wherever possible and relevant.
Open and Distance Learning
Using mobile phones to train teachers is actually a type of distance education, also called
distance learning or open and distance learning, and distance learning is not new; no matter the
technology used over the years, since the 1800s, to deliver distance teacher training, it has
always been used for the same two purposes: to distribute materials and allow interaction
between learner and instructor, or among learners (Perraton, 2010).
Open and Distance Learning Defined
Distance education, or distance learning, discussed in this study serves the specific
purpose of professional development, or teacher training, for teachers, and its definition can be
broadened to embrace the idea that it is open as well as at a distance. The definition of open and
distance learning used in UNESCO (2001) is still applicable today:
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 21
Distance education has been defined as an educational process in which a
significant proportion of the teaching is conducted by someone removed in space
and/or time from the learner. Open learning, in turn, is an organised educational
activity, based on the use of teaching materials, in which constraints on study are
minimised in terms either of access, or of time and place, pace, method of study, or
any combination of these. The term ‘open and distance learning’ is used as an
umbrella term to cover educational approaches of this kind that reach teachers in
their schools, provide learning resources for them, or enable them to qualify without
attending college in person, or open up new opportunities for keeping up to date no
matter where or when they want to study. (p. 3)
Also still applicable is the complaint about studies in the field of open and distance
learning for teacher education being weak on evaluation data, both qualitative and quantitative,
making it difficult to draw conclusions on effectiveness.
Like Burns (2011) and UNESCO (2001), Danaher and Umar (2010) seek to review
practices in distance education for teacher education, also expanding the term to open and
distance learning (ODL) incorporating technology-assisted asynchronous and synchronous
communication for learners and educators who are physically separated from each other or all or
part of the learning. In their collection of articles by leading researchers on the topic, Danaher
and Umar (2010) posit four themes on ODL for teacher education. (1) Assuming the
appropriateness and necessity of ODL for teacher education; (2) articulating fundamental
principles; (3) taking contextual and material factors into account, and (4) implementing this in
practice form the four themes synthesizing their review of research. ODL for teacher education
was found to be viable, appropriate, effective, efficient, and sustainable, yet merely placing
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 22
materials in a distance environment is not sufficient to achieve desired outcomes. Hayes (2014)
supports this view, adding that professional development is not just about providing training, but
also includes support and mentoring to put learning into practice. Thus, materials accessibility,
relevance, cost, and quality must be considered. Cost must be as low as possible, quality as high
as possible, and reach as wide as possible.
Open and Distance Learning for Teacher Education
Burns (2011) reviews the history of distance learning for teacher education beginning
with early modes of print-based correspondence, radio, and television models, through
multimedia resource models such as via CD-ROM, to online learning and mobile learning
models, and covers commonalities of what distance learning creation entails, such as: high
quality professional development, content creation, instructional design, teacher as learner
readiness and support, building community, ensuring quality, and evaluation of both teachers as
learners and programs. Now more than a decade old, UNESCO (2001) similarly reviewed
existing case studies, from nine countries at that time, for teacher education through distance
learning, considering technology, curriculum, cost, and evaluation. Case studies show handheld
devices like mobile phones were not yet in use for the provision of teacher training but print,
audio, radio, television, call-in centers, and computers were all in use. Thus, distance education
for teacher training, like other types of distance learning, has become interactive, exploratory,
dynamic, learner-centered, community-oriented, flexible, grounded in constructivism, active,
practical, problem-based, and incorporates more than content knowledge assessment by not only
the instructor, but also self and peers (Burns, 2011). Most valuable is Burns’ (2011) review of
three evaluation models for professional development used for distance learning because they are
scantily applied to existing project evaluation, not excluding projects for using offline mobile
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 23
phones to train English teachers in developing countries. Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation
can be used backwards from most to least complex, to think about design before evaluation, from
impact of behaviors and skills on the job, demonstration of skills or behaviors on the job,
demonstration of understanding, and learner satisfaction (Kirkpatrick Partners, 2015; Bozarth,
2010), Guskey’s (2002) five levels of evaluation, namely participants’ reaction and learning,
organization’s support and change, participants’ use of knowledge and skills, and student
learning outcomes, claim that the desired result of any teacher professional development is
ultimately the fifth level of improved student outcomes, Scriven’s (2009) evaluation of training
checklist, which combines Kirkpatrick and Guskey’s levels (Burns, 2011), includes: measuring
reactions, teacher learning, behavior, change, organizational impact and impact on student
learning, among other items. Much of the existing evaluation models hit reactions and behavior,
leaving out hard proof of teacher or student learning, which traditionally proves harder to
measure. The topic of evaluation, informed by Kirkpatrick, Guskey, and Scriven, will be
revisited in Chapter 5: Recommendations.
Hayes (2014) updates the literature base on open and distance education for teacher
education begun by Danaher and Umar (2010) and Burns (2011), and addresses innovations in
the continuing professional development specifically of English language teachers, and even
more specifically, of English teachers in developing countries. Diverse contextual conditions
decide what is possible and different strategies are required for different contexts and conditions;
for example, what is possible in developed countries is quite different from what is possible in
developing countries with respect to mobile learning due to infrastructure, electricity, and
connectivity (Horton, 2012). Like Baran (2014), Danaher and Umar’s (2010) collection of case
studies falls short on including ODL projects using mobile phones to train English teachers in
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 24
developing countries. However, to their credit, Danaher and Umar (2010) admit that mobile
phones, as potential tools for mobile learning, represent an aspect of ODL for teacher education
meriting further investigation.
Perraton (2010) compares pre-service and in-service teacher distance learning projects in
20 countries using reach, outcomes, and cost, and contributes to the discussion on the role of
open and distance learning in teacher education by making a threefold case that it shows teachers
as students can: achieve comparable results with conventional institutions, reach large audience
needs unmet by conventional institutions, and create open-ended dialogue. Finally, there are
challenges in measuring the contribution of teacher education since it is situated in broader
changes to educational reform, but three factors are commonly used to indicate success: audience
reached, completion rates or, less often, learning gains, and evidence of teachers’ classroom
performance (Perraton, 2010).
Mobile Learning
Mobile learning falls under the umbrella of open and distance learning explained
above. As a type of open and distance learning, mobile learning usually happens on handheld
mobile devices, such as tablets and phones. For the purposes of this study, the type of mobile
learning investigated is through a qualitative review of four projects (“English in Action”
Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New Guinea, and
“Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines) in which teacher training is received on offline mobile
phones in developing countries. Mobile learning is also called m-learning or mLearning.
Definitions of Mobile Learning
Baran (2014) highlights the challenges in nailing down a concrete definition of mobile
learning due to a lack of conceptual frameworks and robust theories, and the great variety of
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 25
research on mobile learning. Acedo (2014) echoes this sentiment stating contending views and
definitions of mobile learning do not help the foundation upon which research is based.
Definitions of mobile learning mention: physical mobility, conceptual mobility, social mobility,
access, immediacy, situativity, ubiquity, convenience, and contextuality in independent, formal,
or social context (Sharples et al., 2009; Parsons & Ryu, 2006; Kynäslahti, 2003; Cheon, Lee,
Crooks, & Song, 2012; Kukulska-Hulme et al., 2009; Kearney, Schuck, Burden, & Aubusson,
2012, & Frohberg et al., 2009; Baran, 2014). From a design perspective, Horton (2012) defines
mobile learning with two main meanings: being mobile while participating in learning (existing
forms of learning accessed on a mobile device), and learning from the world in which we are
mobile, or “real mobile learning” (p. 501). Horton (2012) also views mobile learning as more
than a form of distance learning, calling it “distance apprenticeship” (p. 530) that has revived the
ancient practice of learning a trade from an expert or master, which fell out of use due to its
expense for widespread use. Now, with mobile devices, an expert, experts, or collective body
can guide the learning of many, widely-distributed apprentices. For this study, the four projects
analyzed (“English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New
Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines) describe that mobile learning entails having
English teachers in developing countries access teacher training content, anywhere and anytime
they prefer and are able, on offline mobile phones.
Theories of Learning for the Mobile Age
Various learning design theories and models were found to be in agreement when Merrill
(2002) designated his five First Principles of Instruction, or basic methods, that are fundamental
in nature to any type of instruction for any age of learner “regardless of theory or philosophical
orientation” underlying the learning (p. 58). Therefore, they could be considered a theoretical
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 26
basis for eLearning, under which falls mobile, or mLearning for adult teachers as learners.
Likely to produce positive learning gains when properly applied in any instructional product or
setting, Merrill’s (2002) First Principles of Instruction are interrelated and use the context of a
real-world task or problem to stimulate and situate learning while providing guidance and
demonstration.
The five First Principles of Instruction originated from the training world in which adults
receive professional development, and proscribe how to create learning environments and
products, including mobile ones, and are: problem-centered, activation, demonstration,
application, and integration (Merrill, 2002). Tasks or problems ideally progress from simple to
complex and represent real issues. Activation relates to recalling prior knowledge and systems
for organizing that knowledge, as well as gaining systems to organize new knowledge.
Demonstration of knowledge can be both informational and skills-based. Application entails
having the learner really perform tasks and solve problems in order to learn by doing while
provided with feedback and guidance. The final step of integration happens when learners use
what they learned in their real life, often through discussion, reflection, presentation, and other
means (Merrill, 2002).
While Merrill’s (2002) First Principles of Instruction are overarching, Sharples, Taylor,
and Vavoula (2007) put forth the only known existing theory specifically of mobile learning,
which is more like a rich description than a theory, for the mobile age as “conversations across
multiple contexts” (p. 8), reminding that technology has always influenced educational theories
and practices, from when mass printing provided textbooks for transmission-based education to
computers for constructing, processing, modeling, and interacting. While most theories of
learning throughout history focused on classrooms with trained teachers, few have addressed
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 27
learning outside this realm, and none have considered both the use of mobile devices and the
general mobility of learners.
Learning in the mobile age moves and crosses space, time, topics, and engagement with
technology turning learning into a personally-managed, lifelong activity. It has the unique
ability to “cram learning into the gaps of daily life” (Sharples, Taylor, and Vavoula, 2007, p.
5). It is social, constructivist, conversational, and contextual both in providing and creating a
context. It is dialectical in that sometimes a learner accommodates a tool’s drawbacks by
adapting behavior, and sometimes a learner makes use of the tool to accommodate their own
requirements. Most relevant and important, it is also controlled by the user. Finally, any attempt
at a theory of mobile learning should be tested against criteria to determine whether it is different
from other theories of learning, accounts for mobility, covers formal and informal learning,
theorizes learning and socio-constructivist, and analyzes learning as personal, situated, and
mediated by technology (Sharples, Taylor, and Vavoula, 2007).
Advantages of Mobile Learning
Horton (2012) summarizes some of the compelling advantages of mobile learning most
often cited by researchers and mobile learning designers as the ability for people to learn in the
places they will be applying the learning, and thereby, have many more opportunities to
learn. Oz (2015) is forthcoming about both the benefits and drawbacks of mobile learning when
citing literature in the field. To begin with, learners have new opportunities promoted through
interaction and collaboration (Kukulska-Hulme & Shield, 2008; Kukulska-Hulme, 2009; Oz,
2015). Positive outcomes, one of the most critical advantages to attempt to demonstrate from
mobile learning or learning in general, include those associated with providing increased
mobility, allowing informal learning anywhere, anytime, being of instructional value, and having
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 28
the potential to affect learning positively in a variety of contexts (Wu et al., 2012; El-Hussein &
Cronje, 2010; Sad & Göktas, 2013; Saran et al. 2009; Motiwalla, 2007; Pollara & Kee
Broussard, 2011; Oz, 2015).
Disadvantages of Mobile Learning
Disadvantages are often described in the literature primarily as user complaints about the
devices themselves rather than the perceived learning or learning experience. Topping the list of
disadvantages for mobile learning are small screen sizes, limited battery lives, high cost of top-
end devices, accessibility, attitude towards mobile learning, and potential for distractions and
interruptions if used in a classroom setting (El-Hussein & Cronje, 2010; Kukulska-Hulme &
Shield, 2008; Sad & Göktas, 2013; Martin & Ertzberger, 2013; Hockly, 2013; JISC, 2013; Oz,
2015). Horton (2012) reminds that developing mobile learning can be “expensive, difficult, and
risky” (p. 501) requiring design modifications for learners in the developing world, such as low-
bandwidth alternatives, the ability to download and go, and on-device storage of learning
content, among others.
Stated advantages and disadvantages herald a call to action for investigating studies in
which quantitative data on mobile learning outcomes prove learning occurs as a direct result of a
mobile intervention, and then proving that not only does learning occur, but also that it is equal
to or greater than learning that occurs through traditional means.
Mobile Learning as Open and Distance Learning for Teacher Education
Mobile learning is no longer new, and mobile devices have been used to provide
numerous kinds of trainings from informal to professional, self-sought or required. Learning
produced for online consumption is now commonly designed with mobiles in mind since learners
increasingly use their mobile devices to access online learning (Horton, 2012). Teachers
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 29
are trained on how to use technology to teach. However, little research has been done on using
mobile phones to train teachers (Baran, 2014). Perhaps this is so because: “The very notion of
researching the future is a paradox” (Blass et al., 2010, p.3; Danaher & Umar, 2010, p. 182).
Baran (2014) aims to fill this gap in mobile learning research by providing the only
known, published review of mobile teacher training literature in the form of a qualitative
synthesis of 37 existing quantitative and qualitative research studies related to the field (See
Appendix A, Table 1). Claiming his is the “first review to initiate an evidence-based discussion
on mobile learning and related emerging pedagogical directions in teacher education,” (p. 17) he
underscores the point that literature to date has mainly focused on training teachers to use mobile
technology in their classrooms rather than using mobile technology to train teachers; thus, using
mobiles for teacher development is the least-researched subtopic under mobile learning
(Ekanayake & Wishart, 2014; Baran, 2014). From Baran’s (2014) review of 2000-2014
research, six findings emerged: (1) using mobile learning for teacher education is on the rise; (2)
theoretical and conceptual perspectives are under-reported; (3) variations exist in perceptions,
attitudes, and use; (4) experiences with mobile learning for teacher training are usually reported
to be beneficial; (5) challenges are under-reported, and (6) integrating mobile learning into
teacher education is supported by pedagogical affordances.
Research Gap in the Literature
Baran’s (2014) search terms and inclusion criteria were too narrow to account for the
variety of names by which mobile teacher training can be called, and the fact that outcomes from
the developing world are not often formally published in research journals, even if they do reflect
the empirical research sought. Only 17 (Aubusson, Schuck, & Burden, 2009; Burton, Frazier,
Annetta, Lamb, Cheng & Chmiel, 2011; Cushing, 2011; Ekanayake & Wishart, 2014; Hossain &
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 30
Quinn, 2013; Husbye & Elsener, 2013; Ismail, Azizan & Azman, 2013; Järvelä, Näykki, Laru &
Luokkanen, 2007; Kafyulilo, 2014; Looi, Sun, Seow & Chia, 2014; O'Bannon & Thomas, 2014;
Price, Davies, Farr, Jewitt, Roussos & Sin, 2014; Şad & Göktaş, 2013; Schuck, Aubusson,
Kearney & Burden, 2013; Seppälä & Alamäki, 2003; Thomas & O’Bannon, 2013; Thomas,
O’Bannon & Bolton, 2013) of the 37 articles found by Baran (2014) discussed research using
mobile or smart phones compared to other types of mobile devices like iPods or PDAs. Of those
17 mobile or smart phone-based studies, only five studies (Ekanayake & Wishart, 2014; Ismail,
Azizan & Azman, 2013; Looi, Sun, Seow & Chia, 2014; Şad & Göktaş, 2013; Kafyulilo, 2014)
took place in developing countries. Of these five studies, no study focused on English teachers.
Due to Baran’s (2014) research methods, no articles were found that specifically relate to using
mobile phones of any kind to train English teachers in developing countries, whether pre-service,
in-service, or teacher educators (See Appendix A, Table 1).
This study argues for an expansion of the inclusion criteria used by Baran (2014) to cast a
wider net and allow for unpublished research and research published outside of scholarly
journals to be considered. However, Baran’s (2014) investigation does shed important light on
the lack of scholarly, published, empirical studies available, and serves as a call to action to add
to the body of scant existing, formally published research. Given Baran’s (2014) findings that
half of the literature he reviewed had been published from 2012-2014, there is hope that this
publication trend will continue (See Appendix A, Figure 1) as it has in other sectors, for
example, using mobile phones in global health and microfinance.
For now, researches must look outside scholarly journals and formally published
empirical research to find information on efforts to use mobile phones to train teachers of
English in developing countries. Because Baran (2014) recommends expanding the data corpus
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 31
as a whole, focusing on longitudinal studies observing classrooms over time, and focusing on
studies with larger scopes and sample sizes, the goal of this study is to also find examples of
established projects with long durations and substantial reach.
Trends in the Field of Mobile Learning
UNESCO released West and Chew’s (2014) study of mobile reading, or people who read
on their mobile phones, in developing countries by using the Worldreader app to access
information and stories. The study had significant findings relevant to using mobile phones to
train English teachers in developing nations. In examining how to bring literature to the
unreached, West and Chew (2014) found that people in developing countries read more when
they read on mobile devices, they enjoy it, and they are likely to read to children, with men
reading more to children than women. They also found that absolute numbers show the majority
of mobile readers to be male, females actually read more. In general, mobile readers are young
and more educated than the population average. Respondents cited convenience as the driving
factor for why they read on their mobile phones. Most surprisingly, the perceived barriers to
mobile reading ranked limited content first, followed by connectivity, and finally, cost. The
biNu Worldreader efforts studied require a constant and reliable data connection, making a huge
drawback of the study being the respondents’ ability to access the internet.
While the field is no longer new, questions remain on whether outcomes are hype or
grounded in good research practices (Acedo, 2014). In recent years, a spike in mobile learning
publications, mobile teacher training publications (Baran, 2014; See Appendix A, Figure 1) and
events has occurred, including the launching of first-ever awards for mLearning, the creation of
an mLearning Alliance, and the first Mobile Learning Week (Acedo, 2014). Emphasis on
mobile learning, especially in the global South, is shifting to policy, business, sustainability, and
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 32
scale. This focus could not be timelier given the resource constraints due to the global recession
that continues to negatively affect educational and human resource availability. Mobile learning
projects have proven their ability to take learning to learners in places previously considered too
remote, isolated, disenfranchised, or otherwise marginalized for mainstream educational
opportunities to reach. Because mobile learning can be shaped into multiple forms, and is
produced and accessed by many new players, it is essential to critically examine how projects
and programs deliver, enhance, and support Education for All (EFA), which is a UNESCO
global commitment with six goals to provide quality education for all youth and adults by 2015
(UNESCO, 2000). Since some mobile learning will flourish and some will not, it is critical to
examine cases that have thrived in order to determine promising and best practices and lessons
learned for successful, sustainable programs; therefore: “practice, discussion, and research...must
remain open, critical, and reflective” (Acedo, 2014, p.4).
Summary
This literature review defines and situates mobile learning in its context as a type of open
and distance learning. Using forms of open and distance learning to educate teachers is nothing
new, and using mobile devices, such as mobile phones, to deliver open and distance learning to
teachers merely represents the latest iteration of open and distance learning for training
teachers. While mobile learning has as many definitions and characteristics as it has advantages
and disadvantages, only one leading theory for learning in the mobile age has been put forth, and
it remains more a description than a theory. Mobile phones are one type of mobile technology
that can be used to deliver mobile learning to teachers, yet few studies exist to document the
process and findings of projects that have used mobile phones to train teachers. This gap in the
research provides a call to action and underscores the purpose of this study. Finally, researchers
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 33
must attempt to stay on top of trends in the field of mobile learning since technology-based
research changes so rapidly. The next chapter describes qualitative research methods undertaken
to deduce promising and best practices and recommendations for using offline mobile phones for
training English teachers in developing countries by using a comparison of the themes and
categories of four found projects, “English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria,
“SMS Story” Papua New Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 34
Chapter 3: Methods
Introduction
A systematic review is the qualitative counterpart to a quantitative meta-analysis. For
this study, the method used to find data, in the form of documents, is an extended systematic
review because it attempts to provide a comprehensive summary of current literature, not only of
traditional literature, but also of grey literature. Unlike traditional literature, grey literature is not
formally published and is found outside major databases and library collections. In an extended
systematic review, the current literature, traditional and grey, is relevant to the research questions
posed, and is employed in a case where an assessment of the existing methodology for a
precisely defined topic, namely using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries, would prove helpful. For this study, the main research question posed is:
What are the common themes and categories evidenced in four projects (“English in Action”
Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New Guinea, and
“Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines) using offline mobile phones for training English teachers
in developing countries? The secondary research question emerges from the first, and further
indicates the need for using the method of systematic review: Given found commonalities of
these four projects using offline mobile phones for training English teachers in developing
countries, what promising or best practices and recommendations can be deduced? Qualitative
case study methodology can also rely on grey literature to form the rich, thick descriptions and
coding of themes resulting from document analysis. In this study, which is a type a case study,
the documents analyzed from the four projects were found using an extended systematic review.
This chapter (1) explains the extended systematic review method used and how grey
literature forms an integral part of the extended systematic review process; (2) grounds the
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 35
process in existing protocol and models, including case study research, with recognition of their
gaps, and (3) describes the search, results, selection, and assessment of the projects found in the
extended systematic review process for the purposes of transparency and replicability of the
study.
Systematic Review: The Methodology Defined
After designing a research question and making a research plan, the first step in a
systematic review is to search the existing literature as thoroughly as possible, combing it for
relevant studies, research, papers, projects, and other related works. Therefore, the elaboration
of this study’s methods needs to list and describe the databases, citation indexes, individual
journals, or other sources searched. Next, the researcher checks the titles, abstracts, or
summaries of the identified resources against predetermined eligibility, which depends on the
research question or problem. For this study, the predetermined eligibility criteria were only
those projects, whether completed or ongoing, that specifically use offline mobile phones to
deliver professional development to English teachers in developing countries. This
predetermined eligibility criteria required searching outside of major databases and library
collections for what is called grey literature, making this study an extended systematic
review. Finally, the researcher selects studies, extracts data, and assesses it. The process
concludes with combining or synthesizing the data, and discussing findings, which form the
basis of the next chapter on findings and discussion (See Appendix B, Figure 1).
Cochrane Collaboration, Campbell Collaboration, and EPPI-Centre
Systematic reviews need to meet standards and be conducted just as carefully as the
studies they report (Van Tulder, Furlan, Bombardier & Bouter, 2003). As a result, three
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 36
governing bodies, the Cochrane Collaboration, the Campbell Collaboration, and the EPPI-
Centre, work to propose, uphold, and standardize best practices and guidelines for systematic
review. Both the Campbell Collaboration and the EPPI-Centre refer and defer to the published
steps and guidelines outlined by the Cochrane Collaboration. The principles of these three
bodies, although mostly related to the health sciences, also define the methods used in this study,
and are discussed below.
The Cochrane Collaboration published a handbook for systematic reviews of
interventions (Higgins & Green, 2011) for searching, selecting, assessing, analyzing, and
presenting research. The Cochrane Collaboration also curates a library of systematic reviews for
evidence-based health care and health policy. Each systematic review focuses on a clearly
formulated question that the review seeks to answer. Similarly, this study uses a clearly
formulated question that a systematic review seeks to answer. Although a simple question, it is
one that, to the researcher’s knowledge, has not been addressed in current, published
literature. In answering this question, the aim is to employ systematic review to summarize and
categorize project commonalities in attempts to produce emerging best practices for
implementing professional development for English teachers in developing countries by using
offline mobile phones.
This study uses the definition of systematic review as presented by the Campbell
Collaboration on its website, as a summary of the best available research on a specific question
accomplished by synthesizing the results of several studies by using clear inclusion/exclusion
criteria, explicit search strategy, systematic coding and analysis, and meta-analysis when
possible (The Campbell Collaboration, n.d.). This process needs to be transparent so as to be
replicable and minimize bias. In following this definition and process, this study uses clear
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 37
inclusion/exclusion criteria, an explicit search strategy, systematic coding and analysis. The
Campbell Collaboration also curates an online library, the Monograph Series, of systematic
reviews that follow guidelines and standards on international research evidence specifically in
the fields of crime and justice, education, social welfare, and international development. In
addition, the Campbell Collaboration provides an online resource center with links to training
and tools for researchers interested in conducting and writing systematic reviews, an equity
checklist for authors in the health field, and multiple referrals to the Cochrane Handbook as a
recommended tool (The Campbell Collaboration, n.d.). Campbell Collaboration reviews differ
from others, like Cochrane Collaboration reviews, in that they include a systematic search for
unpublished reports, are usually international in scope, have a peer-reviewed project plan, have
two independent reviews to make coding and inclusion decisions, and undergo peer and editorial
review. This study strives to accomplish all of the Campbell requirements except those
necessitating peer review or multiple reviewers.
Finally, the EPPI-Centre stands for Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Co-
ordinating, forms part of the Social Science Research Institute at the University College London
(UCL) Institute of Education, and also informs the methods for systematic review used in this
study because it specializes in public policy. Like the Cochrane and Campbell Collaboration,
which both coordinate with EPPI-Centre, the EPPI-Centre curates an Evidence Library of
systematic reviews, and also houses a searchable database of sources used in those systematic
reviews. The EPPI-Centre published a book on systematic review methods (Gough, Oliver &
Thomas, 2012), offers online tools for data coding and management like its own EPPI Reviewer
Gateway 4, and has graduate degree offerings in the subject.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 38
Grey Literature in Extended Systematic Reviews
Valuable research can be missed by only searching major databases and library
collections during the systematic review process (Grey Literature Network Service, 2012). This
means that an extended systematic review can be done to find and incorporate literature outside
of these traditional registries. The type of literature in question covers items such as government
agency or research group reports and working papers, conference proceedings, and doctoral
theses. Known as grey literature, this type of literature is not as widely accessible because it is
not formally published and is found outside of major databases and library collections (Farace &
Schöpfel, 2010). This study relies on an extended systematic review because the research
question can only be addressed through the inclusion of grey literature. In fact, the exclusion of
grey literature in previous systematic reviews and meta-analyses of using mobile phones to
provide teacher training, namely Baran (2014), provides the very gaps in research leading to the
need for this study. Furthermore, as mentioned in the Introduction, data and research like project
reports coming from the developing world are largely grey literature because they may not be
published in traditional or academic ways, if at all, making it challenging to search for and
acquire.
The definition of grey literature, also spelled gray, has changed over time with the rise of
the Internet and the ability to search for it digitally. Auger (1975) was the first to coin the term
reports literature which would become grey literature by the second edition of his book (Auger,
1989), and meant a growing body of vast documents increasingly impacting scientific research
while causing difficulty for librarians. By 1995, the U.S. Interagency Gray Literature Working
Group had defined grey literature as open source materials, either domestic or international, that
may not enter normal channels or systems for its publication, distribution, control, or
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 39
acquisition. Owen (1997) went on to highlight the importance that this definition is not a
judgement on a source’s quality or qualification, but rather only serves to describe its distribution
mode.
Disciplines rely on citing grey literature differently with the most common use found in
the fields of engineering, education, economics, and information sciences; Grey literature also
predominates in agriculture and aeronautics, while use of traditional journals still predominate in
the life and medical sciences (Farace, Frantzen, Schöpfel, Stock & Boekhorst, 2006; Schöpfel,
Stock, Farace & Frantzen, 2005; Schöpfel & Farace, 2010). Public administrations and research
labs also produce a large amount of grey literature, although its distribution may be restricted for
security reasons, and policy-makers have traditionally relied on grey literature to inform their
decisions (Ullah, Kanwar & Kumar, 2004; Gray, Midgley, & Webb, 2012). Since the
establishment of the Grey Literature International Steering Committee’s guidelines for the
availability, evaluation, and improvement of grey literature in 2006, the move to adopt ethical
principles and standards of grey literature has continued (GLISC, 2006).
Strengths and Weaknesses of Extended Systematic Review
Despite the challenges in finding and gaining acceptance for the inclusion of grey
literature, it definitely has benefits (Benzies, Premji, Hayden & Serrett, 2006; Mahood, Eerd &
Irvin, 2014). Research results are often more detailed in reports than in journal articles, usually
available more than a year sooner than a published report, and often not found anywhere
else. Savoie, Helmer, Green and Kazanjian (2003) investigated extended systematic review
search for medical trials, which included the consideration of grey literature. They found that
extended searching identified more trials for their systematic review than those identified within
major databases, and thus served to reduce bias. Grey literature can also be important because of
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 40
its tendency to be original and recent (Debachere, 1995). Savoie, Helmer, Green and Kazanjian
(2003) conclude several factors could affect extended systematic review searches that include
grey literature, including the timing and indexing of literature. They state that the greatest
measure yet to be determined is whether or not there is an association between the method used
to discover the sources, the quality of the sources discovered, and the subsequent impact on
results.
Protocol and Existing Models Used
UNESCO (2013) sets forth policy guidelines and recommendations for mobile learning
that determine the foundation for this research. Namely, of specific relevance to this research,
UNESCO (2013) calls mobile learning researchers and policy makers to: create or update
policies related to mobile learning, provide support and training to teachers through mobile
technologies, develop strategies to provide equal access for all, and raise awareness of mobile
learning through advocacy, leadership, and dialogue. Specific, applicable policy
recommendations include: examining unique potential and challenges of mobile technology and
incorporating them into policy, prioritizing the professional development of teachers, ensuring
that pedagogical materials are available to teachers via mobile devices, and exploring the
practicability of providing professional development and teacher training via mobile technology
(UNESCO, 2013).
In efforts to heed UNESCO’s (2013) aforementioned policy guidelines and
recommendations, the research methods for this study are based on the precedent and model set
forth by existing researchers in the field in their scholarly publications. Lawless and Pellegrino
(2007) like Baran (2014) developed a schema, or table describing existing research, but for
technology training in teacher professional development (Appendix A, Table 1). As discussed in
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 41
the Literature Review, Baran (2014) reviewed 37 scholarly, published articles on using mobile
phones to train teachers (Appendix A, Table 1). However, studies focused on using offline
mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries were absent from the review
using the inclusion and exclusion criteria established by Baran (2014). Therefore, there is a need
to search outside his criteria to expand to project data not published in scholarly journals. No
article found by Baran’s (2014) systematic review process hit all three criteria for this study, but
one article (Mahruf, Shohel, & Power, 2010) hit two of the three criteria since it referenced
English teachers in a developing country who used iPods. Further investigation into this article
led to other stages of the project which did fulfill all three criteria because mobile phones were
used. The systematic hunting for similar projects became the focus of this research, and four
total projects were identified by the extended systematic review. Finally, using the matrix table
structure employed by Lawless and Pellegrino (2007) and Baran (2014), the four identified
projects were similarly categorized into a matrix (See Appendix C, Table 1) for the purposes of
synthesis and discussion of findings found in the next chapter.
Case Study Methodology
A comparison of the themes and categories that emerged from the four projects found
using an extended systematic review actually represents case study methodology. The data to be
presented in the project comparison matrix is essentially a case study of case studies, which are
the four found projects, based on document analysis providing rich, thick descriptions. Case
study methodology is appropriate here because this study explores processes, activities, and
events of the four projects (Creswell, 2003).
Creswell (2003, pp. 14-15) defines case studies as a strategy associated with the
qualitative approach, with others in the same category being ethnographies, grounded theory,
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 42
phenomenological research, and narrative research. A case study involves the in-depth
exploration of a program, event, activity, process, or individual(s) bounded by time, activity, and
the researcher’s information; the researcher can use a variety of data collection procedures to
gather information over a period of time (Creswell, 2003; Stake, 1995). This study represents an
in-depth exploration of four projects bounded by time, activity, and the researcher’s information
which was gathered using an extended systematic review.
Qualitative data collection types can include observations, interviews, documents, and
audiovisual materials (Creswell, 2003). Given the use of extended systematic review in this
study, documents, both primary and secondary, form the main data collection type. A detailed
description of the data is followed by an analysis of themes or issues that emerge from coding
the data, and a qualitative narrative that can include presenting text information in tabular form
such as matrices (Creswell, 2003). This study follows the above model in that themes and
categories emerged from the thick, rich descriptions of data from the four projects, and that data
came from primary and secondary source documents found from completing an extended
systematic review.
Search for Studies
The search for studies was a two-step process that began with answering whether or not
projects even existed that fit the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and once the existence of such
projects was determined, then answering the research question of what common themes and
categories are evidenced in them could be investigated. The researcher began the search for
studies fitting the inclusion and exclusion criteria using traditional collections for scholarly
published work before extending the search outside of traditional collections. In efforts to
capture the most recent published literature possible as close to the time of writing as possible,
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 43
the researcher searched throughout March 2015, worked alone, but consulted University of
Southern California (USC) research librarians (Melanie Vicedo, personal communication;
Katharin Peter, personal communication) and the university’s listed qualitative research experts
(Marleen Pugach, Julie Slayton, Lynda Know, and Ruth Chung, personal communications), and
utilized the university’s library databases and holdings to search for and acquire literature. Using
the advanced search feature of the USC Libraries Quick Search of all holdings, which allows for
the searcher to specify terms and where they occur within a source, all types of sources
containing the following terms within their abstract were searched for: “mobile” or “phone”, and
“teacher”, and “English”, and “development” or “training”. The use of the word “and” ensures
that all those terms appear in the same source, whereas the use of the word “or” means either
term could appear in the source along with all the others linked by “and”. Any content type was
allowed within a date range of 2010-2015, in the English language. This produced 144 results
with the majority from newspapers (48) and journal articles (47).
Next, this search was repeated outside of traditional collections, using an advanced
Google search, in order to include grey literature. A regular Google search, rather than a Google
Scholar search, was used for the same reason, and to avoid duplication with sources already
found within the USC Libraries collections. In March 2015, all types of sources containing the
following search terms were searched for in an advanced Google search with “mobile”, “phone”,
“teacher”, and “English” included under the all these words search category, and “development”
or “training” in the any of these words search category. As with the USC Libraries search, the
language was set to English, however, no date range could be set. Alternately, the Google search
was set to return results by relevance. This produced 97,800,000 results in 0.37 seconds.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 44
Sifting and Selection of Studies
The researcher employed hand sifting and selection rather than relying on a tool to sift
and select studies resulting from the two searches. In both searches, relying on the USC
Libraries for traditional, scholarly published works and Google for potential grey literature, the
search terms used could not account for whether the mobile phones used in a project were
offline, nor could they indicate whether a project took place in a developing country. In order to
confirm these criteria, hand sifting occurred. For the USC Libraries search, the researcher read
the abstract of all 144 results to determine whether offline mobile phones were used in a
developing country. For the Google search, the researcher relied on Google’s relevancy filter to
rank results, and limited hand sifting and selection to the results contained within the first 10
pages returned, equal to the first 100 returned sources, which Google determines to be most
relevant to the search terms. These first 100 returned sources were also hand sifted to determine
whether a project used offline mobile phones and took place in a developing country. In this
case, hand sifting meant that the researcher clicked on and read all 100 sources. For both
searches, hand sifting also allowed for a double-check on the search engines to further ensure the
other inclusion/exclusion criteria were met. In the two searches, both traditional literature and
grey literature sources that met all criteria pointed to four projects that use offline mobile phones
to train English teachers in developing countries, which are “English in Action” Bangladesh,
“English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT”
Philippines.
Extraction and Assessment of Data
Once the USC Libraries and Google searches had determined that four projects fitting the
inclusion/exclusion criteria do in fact exist, then further data from each individual project needed
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 45
to be extracted and assessed. In order to find as much existing data on the four projects as
possible, the researcher once again employed USC Libraries to search for traditional, scholarly
published literature, and Google to search for potential grey literature. In March 2015, the
researcher repeated the two searches, within USC Libraries and with Google, but now had
identified the name and country of each project which became search terms. The search terms
were now the name of the project and the country, occurring anywhere in the source, in any type
of source, any time period, in English.
“English in Action” Bangladesh produced 97 sources in the USC Libraries databases, and
53, 200 on Google. “English Teacher” Nigeria, due to its more generic project title, produced
5,741 sources in the USC Libraries databases, and 433.000 on Google. “SMS Story” Papua New
Guinea produced 5 sources in the USC Libraries databases, and 649 on
Google. “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines produced 88 in the USC Libraries databases, and
5,820 on Google. The researcher hand sifted all the USC Libraries’ results by skimming and
scanning titles for relevancy fitting inclusion/exclusion criteria, and favoring the most robust
project reports over other types, such as short announcements or press releases. The researcher
hand sifted the first page of Google results, sorted by relevancy, equaling the first 10 sources for
each search. What follows in the Findings and Discussion are rich, thick descriptions of the four
projects using data from sources found during the aforementioned searches, followed by a
project comparison matrix (See Appendix C, Table 1) and discussion summarizing the emergent
common themes and categories as commonly done in a qualitative case study.
Summary
The qualitative methodology of extended systematic review was used to conduct this
study, and the inclusion of grey literature formed an integral part of the extended systematic
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 46
review process. The extended systematic review process revealed that this study also followed
qualitative case study methodology in that the project documents found by the extended
systematic review process were analyzed, providing rich, thick descriptions that could be tabled
into a matrix of common themes and categories. The methods were grounded in existing
protocol and modeled after other systematic reviews and case studies from the field, with
recognition that their gaps provided the very foundation and need for this study and the rationale
for considering grey literature. Finally, the search, results, selection, and assessment of the
projects found in the extended systematic review process were specifically outlined for the
purposes of transparency and replicability of the study.
The risk of researching a specific topic is that it might be too narrow to find it the focus
of many published studies. The risk of researching technology is that it might change
dramatically, or even become obsolete, by the time a study on it can be published. The risk of
researching the developing world is that countries in it may not collect or publish data required
for a study. At the intersection of all these risks emerges the purpose of this study: a challenge to
begin a call to action to contribute to emerging research on using offline mobile phones to train
teachers of English in developing countries. Due to its grounding in technology, by the time this
case study based on extended systematic review is published, it will likely be
obsolete. However, the impression it leaves is an advance in practice in the form of a call to
action for contributing to the list of ever-expanding best practices and using them to inform
policy and for project evaluation of future endeavors. A discussion of these promising and
emerging best practices is presented with the findings in the next chapter.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 47
Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion
Introduction
This chapter focuses on the last two steps in a systematic review, which are to combine
the data and discuss the findings, and led to the revelation that this study also adheres to case
study methodology by providing a comparison of four projects using document analysis to
produce rich, thick descriptions also tabled in a matrix with themes and categories (See
Appendix B, Figure 1). After introducing the four case studies, and then describing each of the
four projects (“English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua
New Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines) in detail, this data can be synthesized and
organized into a project comparison matrix (See Appendix C, Table 1). The purpose of the
comparison matrix is to answer what the common themes and categories evidenced in the fours
studies are; they were found to be demographics, partners, content, device, cost, and results of
intervention. Main findings are that projects using offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries can be brought to scale and replicated; rely on multiple project
partners that are national and international and from the public, private, and non-profit sectors;
leverage provided phones, but increasingly the teachers’ own phones; deliver content either
through text message or video; align with existing curricula, remain free or low-cost to
participants; and show positive results for both teachers of young learners and young learners
themselves. The project comparison matrix (See Appendix C, Table 1) can then be used to
discuss findings, and particularly point to the second research question of deducing promising or
best practices and recommendations to be highlighted in the last chapter. Finally, limitations of
the study related to availability of projects and the process of collection and analysis are
addressed.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 48
The Four Cases
The four projects found that use offline mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries, “English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story”
Papua New Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT Philippines, in and of themselves can also
technically be classified as case studies at what Swanson (2010) calls the meso-level, like those
used in sociology, anthropology, history, and education. Therefore, the four cases are referred to
interchangeably as either projects or cases throughout this work. These case studies have “an
emphasis on detailed description and an understanding or explanation of a social process or
phenomenon” and exploit several sources of data, including informants and project document
analysis (Swanborn, 2010, p.22). What follows are the rich, thick descriptions of each case
based on several sources of data, mostly project documents, found during an extended systematic
review of traditional and grey literature.
“English in Action” Bangladesh Project Findings
Funded by UK Aid, in partnership with the government of Bangladesh, English in Action
(EIA) is a nine-year project with several phases aiming to use low-cost mobile phones with
secure digital (SD) cards to deliver teacher training to 120,000 English teachers by 2017
following the government prescription of using the communicative method to teach
English. The 4GB micro SD cards have video-based and other teacher training content like
audio files stored on them, so the phone comes pre-loaded and does not require internet
connectivity to download or access training materials (English in Action, 2015; The Open
University International Development Office, 2015; Hayes, 2014; Banks, 2011; Woodward,
2010; Center for Education Innovations, 2009; Mott MacDonald, n.d.).
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 49
During pilot testing from 2009-10, Apple iPod Nano and Touch were used; by 2011, and
after researching several options, the technology was replaced by Nokia C1 01 phones and
portable speakers. While the phones and speakers were provided to 12,500 teachers in the 2011-
14 phase, during the 2015-17 phase of the project, teachers will provide their own phones. As of
February 2014, all but 3% of teachers already had personal mobiles that can support the SD
card. The videos reflect real Bangladeshi teachers using the standard textbook in their actual
classes and a narrator who guides teachers through the objectives for watching the videos by
starting in their native language, and switching to English as the videos progress. There is also a
printed teacher’s guide, but plans to phase it out by incorporating the guide’s information into the
videos (English in Action, 2015; The Open University International Development Office, 2015;
Hayes, 2014; Banks, 2011; Woodward, 2010; Center for Education Innovations, 2009; Mott
MacDonald, n.d.).
Before the intervention, observations of 252 classrooms found: teachers were not using
English in favor of their native language (Bangla), using only the blackboard and textbook, not
using teaching aids, asking closed questions, and giving only half of students a chance to
participate. Hayes (2014, p. 228) deems the project “scalable, adaptable, sustainable, and
economically viable for teachers and governments.” Findings of assessors from Trinity College,
who carried out baseline and post diagnostic interview exams of English language competence
with participating teachers and students, show an increased passage rate of 35% to 50% for
primary students, and from 71% to 90% for secondary students. For teachers, there was a
decrease in those scoring lower grades from 0-2, and an increase in those scoring higher grades
from 3-6. No exact percentages were reported. Most other project reports are qualitative in
nature. English in Action has won 9 global awards for its innovation in teaching and learning
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 50
(English in Action, 2015; British High Commission Dhaka, 2013; Banks, 2011; Woodward,
2010; Center for Education Innovations, 2009; Mott MacDonald, n.d.).
“English Teacher” Nigeria Project Findings
Like the other three projects (in Mexico, Pakistan, and Senegal) that form part of
UNESCO’s Teacher Development with Mobile Technologies Project, the goal of Nigeria’s
English Teacher is to reach the Education for All Goal 6 of improving education quality through
improving teacher quality. This is accomplished by integrating mobile technologies into the
national teacher professional development system, especially where mobile technology might be
seen as the only option (Ndubisi, 2013). The five project objectives focus on designing and
testing mobile phone functions; developing a training course, resources, and interaction;
institutionalizing sustainable content development, establishing a phone-based resource center or
portal, and exploring peer coaching and mentoring between pre- and in-service teachers
(UNESCOPRESS, 2013).
Using the Nokia Life+ platform, participating Nigerian teachers subscribe to the free
English Teacher service and receive one richly formatted message with thematic and sequenced
education content and pedagogical advice per day for a year. British Council developed the
content and tailored it to align with what it taught in local teacher training colleges, for mobile
use and display, and keeping in mind teachers work in resource-poor schools with large class
sizes (Ndubisi, 2013; UNESCOPRESS, 2013; Rudenko, 2013). According to the Center for
Education Innovations (2013), the project is aimed at teachers in challenging and remote areas
without much access to general teaching support. Participating teachers are also organized into
sharing groups with the intent to establish communities of practice (Pegrum, 2014). Although
the English Teacher service is available to anyone in Nigeria, a total of 52 teachers from 50
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 51
schools in the capital were given phones with pre-loaded SIM cards and basic data plans to pilot
the project, and five master teachers oversee the others and encourage adoption. Otherwise,
connection to the service occurs via the Nokia Life+ application which is a web application,
available on a range of phones and smartphones. The application works with the Nokia Xpress
browser to compress data up to 90%, making it faster, and therefore cheaper, to access online
(Center for Education Innovations, 2013; Ly, 2013a; UNESCOPRESS, 2013).
To date, only anecdotal qualitative results, mostly related to user satisfaction and self-
reported learning, have occurred (Ly, 2013b). Participating teachers report perceptions of
learning stating their pedagogical and ICT knowledge has increased, and that the service is
relevant and enjoyable. They report changes to their teaching practice in terms of adding hands-
on activities, and using new ideas and methods, as well as improvement in student outcomes for
vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling. There is a high rate of retention with all initial
participating teachers still using the service. Master teachers report an interest in recording
classroom observations of participating teachers. Anecdotal evidence also suggested messages
do not always reach participants, repeat, or reach them at inconvenient times, some do not check
for messages daily, some would like additional training on how to use the phone, some are not
comfortable using a touchscreen, phone batteries run down, provided free airtime is used-up, and
data usage statistics provided by Nokia Life+ are limited (Center for Education Innovations,
2013). Because there are no formal, published, or publicly accessible reports available, project
methods and numerical outcomes cannot be analyzed nor used in good faith to provide or
propose promising or best practices. There are simply too many unreported unknowns so far as
promised reports are still due to be released (Steve Vosloo, former UNESCO English Teacher
Nigeria project manager, personal communication).
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 52
“SMS Story” Papua New Guinea Project Findings
This project used daily mobile phone text message lesson plans and stories delivered
during a controlled, twenty-week trial covering two academic terms with the goal to improve
rural elementary school children’s beginning reading skills in English in two provinces. Active
and control groups, at schools with similar characteristics and environments, had an equal
number of fifty-one participating teachers by end-point, and almost equal for students with 982
active and 1004 control by end-point. Teachers received one-hundred stories and one-hundred
related lesson plans, one of each kind of message per day, as well as a cartoon poster to explain
how to put the messages to use, but did not receive in-service training (Gee & Shrestha, 2014;
Trucano, 2014; Vota, 2014; Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, & Watson, 2013; Kaleebu, Gee, Maybanks,
Jones, & Watson, 2013; Platte, 2013).
Assessment measures included reliability-tested base and end reading assessments, which
were the same test, and a midpoint lesson and class observation. Student results show no
significant different at baseline, and reading improvement in both active and control groups at
end-point with significantly greater improvement in the active group in four of five tested
reading skills categories in both grade levels and for both sexes. Due to absences on testing
days, 81% of children tested at baseline are the same as those tested at end-point. The
intervention improved students’ reading ability in decoding, fluency, familiar high frequency
words, and reading phonetically correct nonsense words. There was no statistically significant
improvement in reading comprehension (Gee & Shrestha, 2014; Trucano, 2014; Vota, 2014;
Kaleebu, Gee, Jones & Watson, 2013; Kaleebu, Gee, Maybanks, Jones, & Watson, 2013).
Teaching results show a change in pedagogy linked to the intervention of SMS stories,
such as 42 of 51 active group teachers reading stories to children every day compared to 12 of
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 53
the 51 control group teachers doing the same. However, this result of reading stories to children
could simply be from increased access to reading material, rather than an actual change in
pedagogy, since all participating schools had very few or no classroom books at
baseline. Similarly, two control schools that had student scores improve at end-point received
donations of reading books, unrelated to SMS Stories, during the trial period; this could point to
access to reading materials as key, no matter if accessed via mobile phone or traditional
means. Interestingly, students of teachers in either group who had to be absent from teaching to
attend traditional, provincial trainer-directed training scored lower on the end-point
assessment. Thus, an advantage of SMS Story is that it did not require teachers to be absent
from teaching to attend any training. A majority of 86% of active group teachers reported the
intervention helped them in planning lesson and class activities, and 88% recommended the
intervention be sent to all Papua New Guinea elementary school teachers. Project manager
recommendations include providing participants a call-in service that would allow them to hear
the stories being read, and using the phones to collect project data (Gee & Shrestha, 2014;
Trucano, 2014; Vota, 2014; Kaleebu, Gee, Jones & Watson, 2013; Kaleebu, Gee, Maybanks,
Jones, & Watson, 2013). Stories and lesson plans are now being included in the Papua New
Guinea curriculum (VSO, n.d.). Overall, “results demonstrate that appropriate use of mobile
phone technology can have a positive impact upon educational outcomes in resource-constrained
settings” (Kaleebu, Gee, Jones & Watson, 2013, p.7).
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 54
“Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines Project Findings
This project, which is a partnership of Nokia, the Pearson Foundation, the International
Youth Foundation (IYF), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is perhaps
the most unique of the four in that it was piloted in the Philippines, but has expanded since 2003
to ten more countries (Tanzania, Chile, India, Colombia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Haiti, Indonesia,
South Africa, and Vietnam) due to the success of the original pilot. With its broad reach on
several continents in both hemispheres, Bridge IT comes to be known by different project names
in each country, such as in the case of “Text2Teach” for the Philippines. No matter the project
name, the goals remain the same to provide professional development to teachers that empowers
them to use mobile phones to deliver national or regional curriculum, leverage technology as a
cost-effective manner to deliver content to students in developing and emerging countries, and
partner with local ministries of education and agencies to ensure a sustainable, scalable, and
replicable program that is tailored and focused (Center for Education Innovations, 2014; Ayala
Foundation, 2013; Text2Teach, n.d.; Von Lautz-Cauzanet, n.d.).
The Philippines was chosen for the pilot due to the country’s infrastructure and
population’s use of mobile phones. Early phases of the pilot only had teachers request materials,
like hundreds of available science videos, be delivered to their schools via text message, and
receive them through satellite-enabled equipment, like a television set, at their
schools. However, later phases of the pilot, with the expansion funded by USAID, used mobile
phones to receive the materials, which were expanded for English, Math, and Science subjects
for public elementary school students in grades 5 and 6, sometimes pupils in grade 4, and also
for public school heads and teachers. When the Nokia Education Delivery (NED) technology
was adopted, it allowed educational videos to be accessed, downloaded and stored on a phone
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 55
over the Globe mobile network that provides the telecom infrastructure and the server, and then
played by connecting the phone to a television or video projector. One phone with a prepaid SIM
card good for one year of free service was provided per school, along with tech support and a
teacher’s guide. The statistics feature monitors usage and the search feature retrieves catalogued
downloaded videos (Center for Education Innovations, 2014; Ayala Foundation, 2013;
Text2Teach, n.d.; Von Lautz-Cauzanet, n.d.).
For monitoring and evaluation, Nokia’s Data Gathering (NDG) software allowed project
coordinators to design, deploy, collect, and analyze teacher user surveys all via mobile
phone. Each phase of the three-phase pilot was evaluated and findings published in evaluation
reports for Phase 1 (2004-5) by the UP-National Institute for Science and Mathematics
Educational Development (NISMED), Phase 2 (2006-2007) by the UP-Demographic Research
and Development Foundation, and Phase 3 (2009-2011) by a team of consultants. This study
focuses on data from Phases 2 and 3 because these are the phases that included English and
teacher training. For Phase 2, using a quasi-experimental design with a pre and post-test and
control group, a 10% sample of 12 out of 122 total participating schools representing 3,297
students (59% intervention and 41% control) was used with 12 control schools from the same
provinces and all students taking a 50-question multiple choice, field-tested, exam in English,
Math, and Science with all questions written and answered in English, as well as a voluntary
demographics survey. At the halfway mark of the school year, the same exam was also given to
98 teachers taking the 5th grade exam and 95 teachers taking the 6th grade exam, corresponding
to grade taught, in schools participating in the Text2Teach program, and using a passing score of
75% for mastery. The teachers’ mean scores in English for both grades were below this passing
score, with regression analysis showing the main predictor as province not age or years of
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 56
teaching experience. For the students, pre-test scores in English for grade 5 had a mean of 14.9
control and 14.3 study, and 17.79 control and 17.17 study for grade 6. While post-test results
were not published in the same detail as the pre-test results, evaluation reports for Phases 2 and 3
note exposure to Text2Teach led to significant learning gains for students in all three subjects for
both grade levels, showing the main predicator as English grade before intervention, the most
change occurring after two years of implementation, and a consistency in high-scoring schools
continuing to score high and low-scoring schools continuing to score low (Natividad, 2007;
Medina, 2012; Center for Education Innovations, 2014; Text2Teach, n.d.; Von Lautz-Cauzanet,
n.d.).
Discussion of Findings: Emerging Best Practices from the Project Comparison Matrix
The four projects compared in this study, which all report positive results, range in age
from two to twelve years old and have collectively reached hundreds of thousands of English
teachers and millions of their students in the developing world mainly through text message and
video-based content delivered on provided, or the teachers’ own, offline mobile
phones. Furthermore, two of the four projects are ongoing and still reporting results while
another two have expanded into a second phase in the same country, or as a replicated project in
9 more countries. Since the model of using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries has continued to be used for more than a decade, it seems high time to
review promising and emergent best practices rooted in a comparison of these projects’ common
themes and categories (See Appendix C, Table 1).
For the common theme and category of demographics, a mix of young (2 years old),
small-scale (26-50 schools reached) and longer (10-12 years old), large-scale (2,272-39,700
schools reached) projects affecting less than a thousand to several million students is
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 57
represented. This finding shows that projects like these can pilot small and then can reach scale,
as well as replicate through phases, expansion in the same country, and/or expansion of the same
model to other countries. Since all of the projects worked with young learners at the primary,
elementary, and secondary levels, as well as with in-service teachers rather than pre-service ones,
conclusions cannot yet be made about using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries who teach upper grade levels and adult learners, or those who are pre-
service teachers.
For the common theme and category of project partners, the projects had national and
international stakeholders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, which indicates the
projects were public-private partnerships. All projects teamed with local education sponsors,
corporate sponsors related to mobile technology, and foreign government sponsors including
single governments and/or bodies of the United Nations. Three of the four projects partnered
with NGOs, local governments, publishers, and local telecom providers to offer free, hosted, or
discounted mobile services with Nokia featured predominantly. It should be noted that English
Teacher Nigeria may have also partnered with the aforementioned stakeholders, but no data was
found to support that finding. Three of the four projects resulted in the formation of
communities of practice, meaning teachers shared with each other and/or had a mentor or lead
teacher on site. Power (2012) describes the human support available in the Bangladesh English
in Action project as workshops and cluster meetings for ongoing training, and a forum for
sharing and reflecting. Partner teachers and journals have been used in English in Action
Bangladesh so successfully that the government now employs this for traditional on-ground
training as well.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 58
For content of the trainings, classroom resources for teaching lessons was provided as
well as pedagogy in three of the four projects. This could indicate the need to match pedagogical
techniques, tips, and advice to materials in cases where appropriate materials matching
pedagogical approach were not available or currently in use. This finding also points to the
recognition that project schools not only have teachers in need of training, but also are resource
poor. In all cases, training aligned with existing or mandated curricula proving a need for
autonomy in allowing sovereign nations’ ministries of education their right to decide and
determine curricula and approve pedagogical approach. In three of the four studies, with no
information found on English Teacher Nigeria, considerations were made to culturally adjust
content and consider potential indigenous or local language needs. Only one project, English in
Action Bangladesh, employed the slow-release to teachers of content in English by starting first
in the local language, Bangla.
For the device, two options predominate with Nokia phones used in half the cases and the
teachers’ own phones used in the other half. For one project, English in Action Bangladesh,
Nokia phones were provided at first, transitioning later to the use of the teachers’ own
phones. This transition seems to indicate a trend in using the teachers’ own phones to provide
trainings rather than relying on a sponsor like Nokia to provide phones. Also, since teachers
receiving only one phone per school in the Text2Teach program complained of the shortage,
transitioning to using teachers’ own phones would also serve to address this complaint. Training
on how to use the device or service was provided in all cases. Content was delivered in one of
two ways, either via text message or via video. If delivered via video, the videos were either pre-
downloaded onto a micro SD card in the phone, or accessible through a server for
download. When delivered on a micro SD card, the cards at first came with the provided Nokia
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 59
phones, and in later project phases, could be inserted into teachers’ own phones. This also
indicates a trend in moving away from reliance on a sponsor like Nokia to establish and maintain
a server and downloading capabilities. The downside of using a micro SD card is that content is
fixed and pre-downloaded so updating or adding to it remains challenging.
For the project costs, all the projects had public and private sector donors, but only
English Teacher Nigeria relied mainly on a national donor while the others relied on
international ones. Interestingly, English Teacher Nigeria with its national donor reports higher
project costs than English in Action Bangladesh, but reaches far fewer participants. While total
project costs were difficult to determine, two of four projects report $8-9.5 million annual
budgets, and all projects report low-to-no cost for participants at least for the first year of
service. In cases where participants incurred costs, they were minimal and for issues like paying
to recharge a phone’s battery at a local center with electricity.
For the results of the intervention, three of the four projects report quantitative and
qualitative data, while English Teacher Nigeria only reports anecdotal qualitative data thus
far. Using pre and post test scores, English in Action Bangladesh, SMS Story Papua New
Guinea, and Text2Teach Philippines collected and reported the most comprehensive and reliable
quantitative data on students, and for English in Action, on teachers as well. While SMS Story
did not collect teachers’ test scores, it did measure pre and post change to pedagogy meaning
frequency of reading to students. While Text2Teach did measure pre-test scores for teachers, it
did not report post-test scores, choosing to report change in pedagogy instead. Significant
learning gains, increases in passage rates, and improved test scores were reported either
quantitatively or qualitatively for students in all projects. Similarly, positive changes to
pedagogy were reported for teachers in all projects, whether quantitatively or
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 60
qualitatively. Results for both students and teachers point to the success of projects using offline
mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries.
The reported success in term of learning gains by both teachers and students in the four
projects using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries could be
the result of the degree to which the projects adhered to Merrill’s (2002) First Principles. There
was some evidence that the four projects compared in this study employed Merrill’s (2002) First
Principles, but it is not known whether they did so purposefully. By adhering to national
curriculum and having culturally-relevant content, teachers were activating their prior knowledge
implied by the activation principle. When teachers viewed teaching examples or read lesson plan
steps, the demonstration principle was activated. Finally, most projects provided a
community of practice and observations with accompanying anecdotal evidence of change,
which implied the application and integration principles.
For miscellaneous findings, in both Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea, projects
coordinators noted the current practice of teacher training offered related to the time a teacher
spends away from class in order to attend week-long to six-week long trainings; the detrimental
effects of this method of provision included lost class time for students, travel time and cost for
teachers, and poor return on investment in terms of not learning or retaining anything practically
applicable in their classrooms. Both projects reported the benefits of having situated
professional development taking place directly at the local level at the teachers’ school and/or
community, leading to no absenteeism required to receive training. Thus, in being physically
removed from their practice, teachers had a difficult time implementing techniques or strategies
learned off-site at traditional trainings once they returned to class. If teachers did remember their
training and were motivated enough to attempt implementation, there was a lack of on-site
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 61
support for that process (Hayes, 2014) and that it is mandatory that demonstrated teaching
methods can actually work in their own situations and classrooms. Power (2012) believes
teachers should be able to continue to work and fulfill other responsibilities like caring for their
families while training happens in their own time, and supports this finding outlining two reason
why traditional professional development models off-site do not work: they remove teachers
from the workforce for extended periods of time, and there is little evidence they improve
students’ outcomes. Both in Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea, project reports indicate the
importance of sustained impact over a long period. They point to the fact that receiving daily or
regular text messages on a mobile phone had the consequence of reminding teachers to think
about and plan for their lessons in a habit-forming manner. This was not an intention of the
projects, but rather a noted anecdotal outcome of both (Hayes, 2014).
Limitations of the Study
The limitations of this study relate to both the availability of projects that use offline
mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries, and the data collection and
analysis process employed for the few, existing, found projects. As for the availability of
projects that fit the criteria, the sample size for this study is very small (N=4). With such a small
sample size, both generalizing results to the larger population and making predictions for other,
similar projects yet to be implemented, become questionable. Thus, the researcher was careful to
name results of this study as promising or emerging best practices rather than actual best
practices. Due to the very small number of projects found that used offline mobile phones to
train English teachers in developing countries, it remains unclear as to what best practices
actually are, so this study can really only serve to point future researchers and those interested in
implementing a similar project to a small, yet hopefully growing, collection of tried methods and
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 62
findings, however limited. In the same regard, the limitations of this study due to sample size
also serve as a call to action to fill existing gaps in the literature by conducting more projects
using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries, publishing on
existing yet unknown projects, or both.
Several factors contribute to the possibility that not all existing projects that fit the criteria
were found by the researcher, and that not all existing information on the four projects was
found. First of all, the researcher worked alone and unfunded, which hindered her ability to
employ peer review or double-checking, gain assistance with searching and coding, or pay for
possible software that could have automatically searched for, compiled, and aided in her hand
analysis with the possibility to reduce human error. Second, the researcher’s search terms
limited the projects to those with data available in the English language. Third, the researcher
only focused on online, digital sources and did not include print sources that may only exist in
paper form as compiled and collected internally by each project’s coordinators, or private digital
sources not available online, such as those only saved on a personal computer by a project
coordinator and to which the researcher did not have access. Fourth, the researcher did not
examine search results returned on every page of a Google search, relying instead on Google’s
relevance sort algorithm to assume most relevant sources occurred on the first pages returned by
a search. Finally, the researcher only search one collection of traditional, academic and
published literature, the USC Libraries, and only one collection of grey literature, by Google
searching. Since March 2015, when searching was conducted, and publication of this study,
more projects fitting the criteria could have been published and missed.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 63
Summary
The case study method can be used for data found during an extended systematic review,
which included grey literature, on four projects that used offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries because it can be synthesized into a comparison matrix for the
purposes of discussing common themes and categories pointing to promising and emerging best
practices. The common themes and categories are demographics, partners, content, device, cost,
and results of intervention. Findings indicate that these projects are successful, perhaps because
they tended to follow Merrill’s (2002) First Principles of Instruction, in showing both positive
changes in pedagogy and learner improvement in English; they are scalable, replicable,
affordable for participants, and require multiple partners and stakeholders. The greatest
limitations to this study were twofold, namely the small sample size prohibiting generalization to
the larger population and requiring the clarification that best practices are emerging or promising
rather than actual, and the researcher acting alone and unfunded with search methods and
analysis potentially failing to find data on all possible existing projects fitting the criteria, or on
the four projects. Despite, and because of, these limitations, the researcher can set forth specific,
actionable recommendations and conclusions demonstrating an advance in practice in the next
and final chapter.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 64
Chapter 5: Recommendations
Introduction
This study represents an advance in practice because, to the researcher’s knowledge, no
collection of promising or best practices for projects using offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries existed until now. This study’s findings, synthesized into a
project comparison matrix (See Appendix C, Table 1) of the common themes and categories that
emerged from the four reviewed projects, point to recommended promising and best practices
that can serve as a guide for any future project’s demographics, partners, content, device used,
cost, and potential results and research. Research recommendations are made both for those
researching the field, and practitioners in the field managing projects that use offline mobile
phones to train English teachers in developing countries. This chapter highlights the
recommendations in these six areas, many of which are interrelated, while incorporating other
researchers’ theories and precautions. Finally, implications for potential increased U.S.
involvement in projects using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing
countries, by establishing policies that encourage scale-up via agencies like the U.S. Peace Corps
and English Language Fellows program, are discussed for the future of this field.
Recommendations are that projects using offline mobile phones to train English teachers
in developing countries should:
• expand beyond primary and elementary education;
• reach pre-service as well as in-service teachers;
• utilize a diverse network of partners and stakeholders to include a government education
sponsor;
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 65
• provide content aligned with national curriculum standards as well as Merrill’s (2002)
First Principles of Instruction;
• deliver both the pedagogical content and classroom resources required to implement the
prescribed pedagogy with cultural considerations;
• increasingly leverage teachers’ own mobile phones to deliver content either via text
message or memory card;
• cost little or nothing for participants and reduce cost of content production through Open
Education Resources (OERs);
• practice sound data collection and project monitoring, evaluation, and reporting; require
more research, and
• would greatly benefit from U.S. government support and involvement.
Recommendations for Project Demographics
All of the four projects examined in this study focused on primary and elementary school
English teachers and their students. As a result, little is known about the effectiveness of
projects that use offline mobile phones to train English teachers of higher grade levels and older
students, including adults, in developing countries. Additionally, projects focused on in-service
teachers rather than pre-service teachers. The researcher recommends new projects and next
phases of existing projects, start at, but then expand beyond primary and elementary grade levels
for English education, as well as expand to reach in-service teachers who have not yet begun
teaching.
In terms of the size of such projects, 50 schools seems to be a manageable number to start
with if there is only one control with 25 schools and one intervention with 25 more, and then
scaling up should be broken into phases according to this study’s findings.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 66
Other project demographic considerations relate to establishing required groups of
participants that will be necessary for the recommended data collection, monitoring, evaluation,
and reporting outlined later in this chapter. For example, control groups will be needed of
schools with teachers, whether new teachers or in-service teachers, who do not or did not receive
any training, those that receive or received standard or existing provided training, and those
receiving the project’s intervention of training via offline mobile phone, even though existing
projects only had one control group and one intervention group. These three groups of teachers
will be the same ones taking any pre- and post-tests or surveys, and their three corresponding
groups of students will be the same ones taking the pre- and post-test to measure learning, again
as outlined later in this chapter.
Recommendations for Project Partners
Implementing a project using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries will require a network of diverse partners and stakeholders, national,
international, local, public, private, and nonprofit. All four projects studied call attention to the
need for a government sponsor, likely the Department or Ministry of Education, as well as a
local, government-affiliated, education sponsor. Because government sponsorship, backing,
support, or permission appears to be a requirement for any project attempting to use offline
mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries, it should come as no surprise
that content needs to align with government curriculum standards even in cases where external or
foreign publishers are used to develop content. Finally, Danaher and Umar (2010) mention the
importance of communities of practice, whether on-ground or virtual, that also occur in a
majority of the projects in this study and point to Merrill’s (2002) concept of integration as the
last step in the First Principles of Instruction. A community of practice is a group of
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 67
professionals in the same field who get together for information and experience-sharing in order
to develop themselves and learn from each other (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Therefore, on-ground
support through local experts and communities of practice with local teachers coming together
for ideas-exchange, mentoring, and networking will likely be needed to provide human follow-
up and monitor application.
In addition to securing a government education sponsor and aligning curriculum to
government standards, project managers should also consider partnering with external
stakeholders like Nokia (if they choose to provide phones to teachers rather than use the
teachers’ own phones), or another corporate sponsor like Frontline SMS or those offering similar
services like Celly (if they choose to use the teachers’ own phones and text messaging to deliver
content). Since most projects studied had NGO sponsors, both foreign and domestic, and foreign
government sponsorship, with the United States notably absent except for some USAID funding,
other projects will also likely need to seek such sponsors or partners. Other partners who mainly
fulfill the role of funders and donors will be discussed under Project Costs.
Recommendations for Project Content
The most revealing finding of this study leads to a recommendation that teachers cannot
teach in a proscribed way, or implement their training, if they lack the classroom resources
required to carry out a certain technique, method, or pedagogy; thus, content is not only teacher
training information, but also usually includes corresponding material to be used during class
with students, such as stories to read with them. If an English teacher in a developing country
accesses a recommended pedagogy using an offline mobile phone, and that pedagogy is tied to
having specific resources, then for the pedagogy to be implemented, the resources also need to
be made available via the offline mobile phone. Not providing the resources would mean a
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 68
teacher received training and knows what to do, but actually does not have what he/she needs to
do it. For example, if a teacher learns it is good pedagogy to read aloud with children, but the
teacher has no books or nothing to read, the pedagogy cannot be implemented. UNESCO (West
& Chew, 2014) cautions that the opposite approach of only providing resources without
pedagogy training on how to use them also fails since “access to books does not, by any means,
assure or necessarily even promote literacy. Parachuting books to people – whether through
mobile phones or other mediums – is exactly that: dropping books and leaving (p.18)” and
reading is a skill to be taught and practiced. An alternate to delivering the corresponding
classroom resources along with the training via offline mobile phones would be to provide hard
copies. In most of the projects evaluated in this study, hard copies of the training materials were
made available to the teacher participants.
Content also needs to reflect local culture, such as by referencing national textbooks
teachers really use, featuring real local classrooms and teachers, discussing culturally relevant
topics such as national holidays and celebrations, and considering regional cultural
differences. Interestingly, content about pedagogy for teaching English should be presented in
English when possible, but only after determining if considerations need to be made for
indigenous or local languages. Finally, as aforementioned, content should align with national
curriculum standards even if pedagogy, methodology, or teaching techniques are new.
Finally, content should be designed to adhere to Merrill’s (2002) First Principles of
Instruction when possible, in order to promote learning and increase positive student learning
gains. First, when English teachers in developing countries are the learners, the learning
experience they receive via content delivered to and accessed on their offline mobile phones
should follow Merrill’s (2002) First Principles of Learning. Then, when those same teachers
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 69
instruct their own students, they should also use the same five First Principles of making learning
task or problem-based, activating prior knowledge, demonstrating, applying, and integrating.
Recommendations for Device Used
Given that the majority of the projects are trending away from providing teachers with a
mobile phone, and toward leveraging the teachers’ own mobile phones, the recommendation is to
utilize technology already present rather than introducing or gifting it. Only in situations where
the teachers do not have their own mobile phones, then a phone could be provided. This model
reduces project costs, decreases dependency on a corporate sponsor to supply and sustainably
maintain the technology, and eliminates the need for new device training since teachers already
know how to use their own phones. Some training would still be needed to explain how to
access the content, or how it will be delivered, to the user’s phone but not how to use the phone
itself.
A project team should perform a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether to deploy
content via text message or memory card. Both types of delivery appear to be effective in
showing positive results to changes in teaching and learning, so a project’s budget and purpose
will determine which to choose. The easiest and most cost-effective way to disseminate the
content is by text message. If video or other non-text resources are desired or required, then
teachers could be provided with micro memory cards on which the video and other non-text
resources are stored. However, teachers would need to already own phones with the ability to
accept a micro memory card. The advantage of text message content over memory card content
is that new or updated content can be disseminated faster and easier. Updating a memory card
with new content would require loading that content onto a new memory card and distributing it
to all participating teachers, or collecting the old memory cards from users, updating them with
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 70
new content, and re-distributing them. Although, relying on text message content only could
prove quite limiting depending on the nature and purpose of the project, Hayes (2014) sees value
in adding text messaging for training tips, if not for the body of the training, at least as a means
of reinforcement, dissemination of updates, check-in, and follow-up.
Recommendations for Project Cost
Public, private, domestic, and international funding sources, as well as partnerships with
local telecom operators, will be required to keep costs for participants free to minimal. Total
project costs vary, but costs to participants must remain low as most participants who are English
teachers in developing countries could be at or below the poverty line in their nations. If content
can be pushed out virtually free, and teachers use their own phones, then the greatest expenses
will be in production of content. To reduce the costs associated with developing and producing
content, researchers increasingly point to curating it rather than creating it through the use of
Open Educational Resources (OERs), which are individually or collaboratively developed
teaching materials, but shared for free use in what is known as a creative commons. Using OERs
for the teacher training content in projects that use offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries could work so long as it still aligned, or was made to align, with
national curriculum standards.
Perraton (2010) describes the birth of OERs and makes the case for their use to reduce
costs of content development:
Since the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it was making its
teaching materials freely available on the internet, there has been considerable
interest in the possibility of using open educational resources at various levels of
education. As one of the constraints on the development of open and distance
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 71
learning is the need to invest in the development of teaching materials, there is a
case for the sharing, or cooperative development, of materials. They can be used
both for open and distance learning and as resources within conventional teaching
institutions (p. 8)
Horton (2012) also recommends using existing content that can be adapted rather than
creating it from scratch. Acedo (2014) goes a bit further and specifies that user-generated
content represents a major transition from a dependence on teacher-provided content supplied by
schools and ministries of education to an openness of accepting community or local-created
content or receiving it from the entire world. UNESCO’s mobile reader report (West & Chew,
2014) encourages authors and publishers to freely license their texts for educational purposes,
enabling whole books to be downloaded and read offline, thus ridding the need for internet
connectivity, and Facebook Zero and Wikipedia Zero projects, both designed with developing
world users in mind, waive the data charges for those accessing their sites. Most currently,
Facebook’s Internet.org project is trying to connect the two-thirds of the world it claims does not
have Internet access (Zuckerberg, n.d.), highlighting the point that Internet will eventually reach
populations without it when infrastructure, power sources and mobile networks are established,
and the prices of devices and service plans fall. This study aims at serving the needs of those
without Internet access who are waiting for “eventually” to become reality.
Power (2012), former Open University program director for “English in Action” in
Bangladesh and lead academic on the TESSA project in sub-Saharan Africa, envisions a new
architecture for English teacher professional development based on OERs for implementation in
South Sudan and beyond, and he has tested it. Power (2012) believes the OERs should be
provided on low-cost mobile phones with SD cards, thus making a hybrid model or “missing
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 72
link” out of the “English in Action” Bangladesh and TESSA projects, borrowing the technology
model from the former and the resource model from the latter. In fact, in his TESSA project
using OERs in sub-Saharan Africa, most participating teachers had little or no access to the
internet so they engaged with the OER materials in hardcopy form. This further indicates that,
just because OERs are accessible online, does not mean they must be used online.
Recommendations for Potential Results and Further Research
A two-pronged approach to ensure integrity of potential results and development of
further research is recommended for researchers of, and in, the field. A researcher of the field
means someone studying offline mobile phones for training English teachers in developing
countries. A researcher in the field means someone who works in a developing country
managing and/or implementing a project that uses offline mobile phones to train English teachers
there. One aspect of further research is for researchers of the field, while the other aspect deals
with practitioners implementing projects in the field that require sound data collection,
monitoring, and reporting because this data, if made publicly accessible, would benefit
researchers of the field as well. For researchers of the field, it is recommended that they take a
comprehensive look at the “Bridge IT” projects now in ten developing countries. A cross-
country comparative analysis of these projects would make for an ideal dissertation, or published
study. In general, all researchers of the field should be mindful of including grey literature when
searching for information on such projects. Since the inclusion of grey literature can greatly
expand the number of sources found, it is recommended researchers utilize software built for this
purpose, like that offered by EPPI-Centre in its EPPI Reviewer Gateway 4 tool for data coding
and management. Finally, this study could be thought of a collaborative and evolutionary work
in process if others were to heed the call to add to the collection of known projects using offline
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 73
mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries for the continued purpose and
collective goal of refining and testing promising and best practices.
Other researchers have also proposed the need for further research about the
field. Traxler and Dearden (2005) examined the potential for using mobile learning as part of
INSET in Sub-Saharan Africa. They identified four key areas for future work into the use of
mobile technologies integrated into open distance learning as inclusion of rural and remote
teachers across cultures, genders, and tribes; a new paradigm for development meant to disrupt
centralized power and expensive technologies or infrastructure; the continued influence of
mobile learning pedagogy, and evaluation to develop frameworks.
For practitioners implementing projects in the field, this study’s researcher recommends
the following set of guiding questions, which are in order of a project’s process, and increase in
difficulty to measure. They are informed by Kirkpatrick’s taxonomy, known as four levels of
learner satisfaction, demonstration of understanding, demonstration of skills or behaviors on the
job, and impact of the behaviors and skills on the job (Kirkpatrick Partners, 2015). Kirkpatrick
suggests working backwards through these levels for the purposes of design rather than
evaluation (Bozarth, 2010). In addition to Kirkpatrick’s levels, those of Guskey (2002), with
particular emphasis on learner outcomes, and Scriven’s (2009) evaluation of training checklist,
all referenced by Burns (2011) and mentioned in Chapter 2: Literature Review, also inform the
following set of suggested project guiding questions.
1. What is the mobile phone penetration?
2. What makes connectivity unlikely?
3. What is the willingness to access training via mobile phone?
4. If willing, what is the experience like?
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 74
a. delivery
b. content
5. Does teacher learning occur via mobile phone?
6. If teacher learning occurs, given the same/similar content, how does it compare with
other delivery methods?
a. no training
b. traditional models of training (current practice)
7. If teacher learning occurs, is it applied in the classroom?
8. If teacher learning is applied in the classroom, is it effective (meaning, do students
learn)?
The first question should be easy to answer if a country collects statistics on mobile
phone penetration, which most developing countries now do. Determining regional variations in
mobile phone penetration may be more complicated. The answer to a country or region’s mobile
phone penetration will be an indication of potential project feasibility. The second question may
or may not matter depending on the way content is to be delivered; for example, does it require
or not require a mobile phone to be connected to the Internet. This study has proven that Internet
connectivity is not required in order to provide training to English teachers in developing
countries via mobile phone. Therefore, a found lack of Internet connectivity should not prohibit
a project in a region with mobile phone penetration. The third question may or may not be
known before a pilot takes place. This means that the population may or may not know if they
are willing to access learning via mobile phone until being directly asked to do so. The fourth
question is answered during the pilot, and depends on what the pilot seeks to measure. It can
measure experience based on the mode of delivery, or experience with the content presented, or
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 75
both. Since experience is being measured, a qualitative survey that captures and describes
reactions, feelings, and emotions on a Likert scale is recommended. The power of the phones
themselves to collect user data should not be underestimated, as surveys could be texted to
participants who text back their answers or feedback. UNESCO (West & Chew, 2014) used
mobile phones to collect user data for its mobile literacy in developing countries report, and
Wagner, Castillo, Murphy, Crofton and Zahra (2014) feel that “Developing measureable,
sustainable, and scalable design solutions, as part of a framework for effectiveness, will be an
important way to advance the field in the coming years (p. 12).”
One of the most challenging variables to measure is that learning occurred, as represented
by the fifth and sixth questions. This can be done using a control group that receives no training,
a group that receives the traditional method of training (both delivery and content), and a group
that receives training via mobile phone (different delivery but same content adapted for mobile
delivery). Each group would have a pre- and post-test to help determine if learning
occurred. The pre-and post-test needs to be the same, as do the teachers that take it. Oftentimes,
teacher learning is left out of project research and evaluation in favor of testing student outcomes
as an indication of teacher development; however, since teachers are really the learners as
participants in projects that use offline mobile phones to train them, then their learning also
needs to be measured. Some projects will choose to measure both the teachers’ change in
English language and change in teaching. Other projects will aim to only measure changes to
teaching when English language development or competency is not a component of the provided
training for the teachers.
The last two questions are the most challenging to determine because application of
learning must be measured, as well as the effectiveness of the application. This requires
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 76
documenting evidence of a teacher using a technique, approach, or method learned during
training in his or her own classroom, and brings to mind two of Merrill’s (2002) First Principles
of Instruction of applying and integrating learning. This can be done through qualitative self-
reported survey, class observation, or video recordings. Finally, student outcomes should be
assessed to attempt to determine effectiveness of the application of the teacher’s
training. Student outcomes might be measured on a pre- and post-test by having a control group
(a group taught by a teacher who received no training), a group taught by a teacher who received
traditional training, and a group taught by a teacher who received mobile training. Alternately,
students of the same teacher could be evaluated before the teacher receives training and after. In
all cases, the pre- and post-test must be the same instruments and taken by the same
participants. Finally, a project’s process itself must be evaluated following Burns’ (2011) review
of evaluation models in order to ensure a systematic, comprehensive, scholarly approach to
project evaluation so that it might be included in formal, published journals, thus making it
accessible to researchers in the field of using mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries.
United States Government Involvement for Scaling Up
Despite some efforts by USAID and U.S. donor companies, the U.S. government or
government-sponsored projects for using mobile phones to train English teachers in developing
countries appear largely absent. With most projects and reports coming from foreign
government (notably UK Aid and Australia Aid) or international aid organizations like
UNESCO, there is no reason for the United States to remain absent. To that end, two U.S.
government programs with international reach in dozens of developing countries could
implement mobile teacher training quite quickly and readily on a large scale: the U.S. Peace
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 77
Corps, which sends U.S. citizen volunteers on two-year assignments (often to teach English or
train English teachers) to developing countries, and the U.S. Department of State English
Language Fellow program, which sends specialists in teaching English to speakers of other
languages on 10-month or longer assignments to train English teachers in developing countries.
Furthermore, the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs
already produced, in partnership with the University of Oregon, and uses video-based English
teacher training materials and programs specifically for English teachers in developing countries,
known as the “Shaping the Way We Teach English” and “Shaping the Way We Teach English:
From Observation to Action” series (University of Oregon, 2013; U.S. Department of State,
2013), which is also now available on YouTube and as a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)
offered by Coursera. Furthermore, these training videos are culturally considerate since they
depict real English teachers in their actual classrooms in countries worldwide. Since these
resources already exist, are in use online and in DVD form by teacher trainers worldwide, and
come with supporting materials, this researcher sees little reason to keep them from being
deployed via mobile phone, using the “English in Action” Bangladesh method of storing them,
or preloading them, on SD cards on mobile phones, and then using the “SMS Stories” Papua
New Guinea method to provide regular text message-based tips, follow-up, and check-ins.
Since 96% of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers communicate with headquarters in their
country via SMS/text message (Peace Corps Tech, 2013), and most English Language Fellows
have a mobile phone, Peace Corps and English Language Fellow program headquarters could
push out free text messages with teacher training content to volunteers who, in turn, could share
that content with their local network of national colleagues at their school sites. Alternately, the
U.S. Peace Corps and English Language Fellow program could provide all volunteers with a
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 78
mobile phone instead of waiting for the volunteers to purchase one anyway. This provided
phone could come pre-loaded with teacher training content, as in the “English in Action”
Bangladesh model. This would virtually eliminate the need for volunteers and Peace Corps
trainers to travel for trainings, and would allow the local colleagues of volunteers to access the
same materials through their volunteer’s phone. Peace Corps is already using Frontline SMS and
Duolingo to provide language training to its volunteers, and the English Language Program
already promotes the use of the “Shaping” series in-country, so the question remains: if the U.S.
government already has developed the content, already provides training with the content, and
already has access to virtually a global audience of English teachers, what is stopping it from
providing delivery via mobile phone? This research has hopefully provided some insight into the
promising and emerging best practices for the means by which this can be accomplished, and the
importance and urgency for why this is needed, but also the call to action to implement it while
collecting sound data on the entire process.
Conclusion
There are four recommended variations for using offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries, namely by using text messages and teachers’ own phones, text
messages and provided phones, training material stored on SD cards in teachers’ own phones, or
training material stored on SD cards in provided phones. The most cost-effective variation
seems to be text messages delivered to teachers’ own phones. No matter the choice of delivery
modes, any project using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries
will require three main strengths: a diverse network of project partners to include local
government backing, a low or no-cost price point for participants, and a robust project
monitoring and evaluation plan based on quality data gathering. Given the demonstrated
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 79
potential for scaling-up in projects lasting decades and expanding to other countries, as in the
case of “English in Action” Bangladesh and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines, and the
involvement of other nations in supporting such successful projects, it would be encouraging to
involve the greater participation of the United States in such projects. The U.S. government
could have tremendous potential global reach if it were to adopt teacher training policy for using
offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries through organizations
like the U.S. Peace Corps and English Language Fellows program.
Using a qualitative case study approach, this study employed an extended systematic
review in which document analysis led to common themes and categories evidenced in four
projects, “English in Action” Bangladesh, “English Teacher” Nigeria, “SMS Story” Papua New
Guinea, and “Text2Teach/Bridge IT” Philippines, that used offline mobile phones to train
English teachers in developing countries. The aim of this study was that the common themes
and categories of these four projects would provide promising and emerging best practices for
this burgeoning field of using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing
countries in response to a gap in the research and pressing global need for trained teachers.
These promising and emerging best practices are particularly valuable because they can also be
applied in other fields with different, non-teacher learners; they provide models that can be used
no matter the mobile technology, with or without Internet. Other sectors and domains, from
global health to microfinance, could utilize these practices to scale reach and provide training,
proving that those who remain without Internet connectivity do not have to remain unreached,
and those with connectivity can also benefit from the same offline technology and project and
learning design principles.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 80
This study serves as an advance in practice by providing evidence of promising and
emerging best practices in using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing
countries where, to the researcher’s knowledge, no such evidence had been previously gathered
or reported before. By publishing promising and emerging best practices, it is the researcher’s
hope that they will provide a guide to practitioners intending and inspired to implement such a
project when a needs assessment determines it would be a viable solution. This study also serves
as a call to action for scaling-up existing projects using offline mobile phones to train English
teachers in developing countries, implementing new ones where appropriate and needed,
collecting and reporting project data, and researching and publishing about the field. It is the
researcher’s hope that global colleagues, interested in serving the needs of those who are waiting
for the eventuality of Internet connectivity to become a reality, contribute to this study’s project
comparison matrix, making it an open source, ever-expanding clearinghouse for the collaborative
curation and creation of best practices for using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in
developing countries, and the application of those practices to other sectors with similar goals.
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 81
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USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 99
Appendix A
Figure 1
Publication trends in research on using mobile devices to train teachers (Baran, 2014).
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 100
Table 1
The 37 existing studies on mobile learning and teacher education (Baran, 2014).
(continued)
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 101
(continued)
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 102
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 103
Appendix B
Figure 1
"Systematic reviews - what authors do" by Centre for Health Communication and Participation
La Trobe University, Australasian Cochrane Centre (n.d.)
Running head: USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN TEACHERS 104
Table 1
Project Comparison Matrix
Appendix C
"English in Action"
Bangladesh
"English Teacher" Nigeria
"SMS Story" Papua
New Guinea
"Text2Teach/Bridge IT"
Philippines
Demographics
Time frame
9 years; pilot began in 2009;
project ends 2017
2013-present; runs 72 weeks
and begins whenever a user
signs up
April-November 2013
(20 weeks); currently
recruiting SMS Story II
coordinator and
researchers
2003 pilot begun in
Philippines-presently
expanded and active in 10
more countries
Participants
75,000-120,000 teachers and 10
million students by 2017
52 teachers in pilot; 23,000
accessed nationally as of 2013
51control/51 active
teachers at end point;
1004 control/982
active students at end
point
15, 267 teachers; 1.3 million
students
Schools reached
39,700 schools in 232 regions
50
25 control/ 26 active
by end point
2, 272
Grade level Primary and secondary Primary Elementary Public elementary
Partners
Local education
sponsor
Government Teacher
Development Programme and
Education Offices; National
Academy for Primary Education;
National Curriculum and
Textbook Board
National Teachers' Institute
Curriculum
Development and
Assessment Division
of Dept of Ed;
elementary standards
officers
Local government units
Local telecom operator
sponsor
Bangladesh Telecommunication
Regulatory Commission; all 6
national mobile operators
Not found
Digicel
Globe
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 105
NGO sponsor
Underprivileged Children's
Educational Programmes (UCEP-
Bangladesh); Friends in Village
Development Bangladesh
(FIVDB); UNICEF
Not found
Voluntary Services
Overseas (VSO)
Ayala Foundation;
International Youth
Foundation (IYF)
Corporate sponsor
Nokia; BMB Mott MacDonald
consultancy
Nokia Life+
Frontline SMS (free
software)
Nokia; SEAMEO INNOTECH
Local government
sponsor
Department of Education;
Ministry of Primary and Mass
Education
Not found
Department of
Education
Department of Education
Foreign government
sponsor
UK (via BBC Media Action, the
Open University, and UKAID);
World Bank
UNESCO
Australian Department
of Foreign Affairs and
Trade
United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP)
Publisher sponsor
Works with national textbook
English for Today
British Council
Not found
Pearson
Local experts
Master trainers
Not found
Trained national
research assistants;
head teachers or
teachers in charge
Not found
Faculty
dialogue/community of
practice
Yes
Yes
Not found
Yes
Content
Content subject English English Reading in English English, Math, Science
Pedagogy taught
Communicative method
Pedagogical advice; thematic
and sequenced lesson content
Lesson plans and
stories
Teacher's guide to 8 lessons
Language of content English/Bangla English English English
Aligned with existing
curricula
Yes
Yes
Yes; Dept. of Ed
adopted UK Letters
and Sounds Synthetic
Phonics Structure
Yes
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 106
Cultural relevancy of
content
Yes; features real teachers using
standard textbooks in actual
classes
Not found
Yes; highland and
coastal; national
celebrations
Yes, content adapted locally
Indigenous/local
languag
e considerations
Yes
Not found
Yes, but reported not
to be necessary in
languages other than
English
Yes
Device
Type of mobile
Nokia C1 01 in 2011-2014 phase;
teachers' own in 2015-2017
phase
Teachers' own
Teachers' own
One Nokia phone with
prepaid SIM card good for
one year of free service
Device training
provided
Yes
Yes, but some participants
have requested additional
training
Yes via poster
Yes and ongoing self-help
tech support
Content delivery
Phone preloaded with 4GB micro
SD card containing video and
other content
Daily text message for 72
weeks; richly formatted
messages; option to access
more via Nokia Life+ web app if
using a smartphone
Daily text message
through free software
Frontline SMS; 100
stories with their
related 100 lesson
plans
Nokia Education Delivery
(NED) for downloading
videos to satellite-enabled
televisions or monitors
Cost
Total project cost
$8 million annually; 2 British
pounds per learner
$9.5 million annually
Not found
Not found
Funding source
UK Aid; UK Department for
International Development
Donor Nigeria Naira
Australian
Government through a
research grant from
the Economic and
Public Sector Program
Multiple private and public;
USAID for Phase 3
Cost to participants
Described as low cost
Free; $1 month carrier fee,
normal cellular data charges
Free through closed
user group cost
covered by Dept of
Education; 2
Free for one year
USING OFFLINE MOBILE PHONES TO TRAIN ENGLISH TEACHERS 107
Kina/week to charge
phone battery
Participant incentives
Phone provided to participants in
2011-2014 phase; printed
supplemental resources given
Phone provided free to 52
teachers in 50 schools in the
capital, although anyone can
get the service
Teachers: certificates,
hard copies; students:
pencils
Not found
Complaints
Not found
Messages sometimes don't
reach participants, repeat,
reach them at inconvenient
times; some not comfortable
with touch screen; phone
batteries run down; free
provided air time used up
quickly
Time of day text
messages sent out
could be inconvenient
Only one phone per school
Results of
Intervention
Teachers
Increase in those scoring higher
grades and teaching in English
with new methods
Anecdotal, self-reported
positive
Change in pedagogy
with more teachers
reading to students
everyday
Only pre-test scores
reported; improvement in
teaching practices
Students
Increase in passage rates,
motivation, attitude towards
English
Anecdotal, teacher-reported
positive
Significantly greater
improvement in 4 of 5
tested reading skills
categories
Significant learning gains
Abstract (if available)
Abstract
Since mobile phone ownership and use saturate the developing world, teachers there could use their mobile phones to receive teacher training as distance education (West & Chew, 2014). However, the challenge remains that the vast majority of mobile phones used in developing countries lack Internet connectivity (Horton, 2012), requiring creative solutions for how best to deliver teacher training content to offline mobile phones. While demand for training exists, and the prevalence of mobile phones exists, projects for using offline mobile phones to train English teachers that have been brought to scale and result in rigorous, published findings do not readily exist (Kaleebu, Gee, Jones, & Watson, 2013
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Guevara, Katherine C.
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Emerging best practices for using offline mobile phones to train English teachers in developing countries
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