• Introduction

Agnes Kukulska-Hulme is Professor of Learning Technology and Communication in the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK. She is Past-President of the International Association for Mobile Learning, and serves on the Editorial Board of several journals including the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning. She has been researching mobile learning since 2001, recently as part of the European MOTILL project on mobile technologies in life-long learning, the MASELTOV project on smart and personalized technologies for social inclusion of immigrants, and a British Council project on Mobile Pedagogy for English Language Teaching. Professor Kukulska-Hulme’s expertise also encompasses distance learning, open and online education, and language learning. Her original discipline background is in linguistics and foreign language acquisition, and from this perspective she has a longstanding research interest in effective communication mediated by technology and the new possibilities for language learning and re-learning in an age of mobility. In 2013 the International Research Foundation for English Language Education published her position paper on Re-skilling Language Learners for a Mobile World.

• Plenary speech

Language Assistance in Life and Learning
       Mobile learning multiplies opportunities to learn and practice outside the classroom, opening up education to a wider audience. At the same time, it challenges educators to consider impacts on instructional designs, in-class and out-of-class practices, language curricula and traditional assessment. In the European MASELTOV project, we work with the concept to ‘learner journeys’, and we examine instances of both planned and unplanned language learning among migrants who have access to smart phones and find themselves having to adapt to life in a new city. What kinds of language assistance can personal devices offer them in everyday communication and how does this relate to their formal educational experience? The answers lie partly in the new features, tools and services that are available on smart phones and tablets, and partly in learners’capacity to make use of them in ways that will extend and transform their learning.