Teaching Foreign Languages To Gifted And Talented Students Using Tablets

PERMATA Insan College is a gifted and talented education institution in Islamic Science University of Malaysia. It places the importance of English and Arabic across its curriculum as the main medium of instruction. In the effort to enhance students' language performance, the college implements language teaching and learning with the aid of tablet. This study aims to find out of the effectiveness of language learning among the gifted and talented students of PERMATA Insan College who use smart devices and tablets as the main tool in the classroom. Interviews were conducted among six students with highest and lowest academic achievement in both English and Arabic language. Students' responses were later analysed by identifying commonalities and differences among students, and then these responses were coded and identified by its main themes. Results showed that there were differences between students' perspectives on the use of mobile learning devices to learn English and Arabic in three main themes. The first group believed that mobile learning was an excellent strategy and the best way to learn both languages. Meanwhile, the second group believed that mobile learning was good but still required face to face learning with the language teachers. Finally, the third group believed that mobile learning was not suitable for learning languages as they prefer the traditional language classroom with daily face to face practice.