An Investigation into the Impact of Shortened Texting on Muslim Learner's Correspondence Ability

High penetrability of wireless, mobile, portable, and handheld devices has resulted in education for all as the mobile’s challenge coincides with an unprecedented growth in access to pedagogical materials technology, particularly in developing countries (UNESCO Mobile Learning Week Report, 2011). The present study set out to discover how Muslim learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) are encouraged to think about and learn the Islamic instructions—as an integral part of their native culture—in TL by incorporating communicative skills through the pedagogically mediated application of cell-phone. The user groups of interest were 218 Iranian second-year male and female students of translation studies at Payame Noor University, from age range of 21-24, homogenized as upper-intermediate through conducting Nelson English language proficiency test, level 400 A. They were spread randomly across 109 dyads to learn technology-enhanced materials in 36 nonformal sessions. To equip the Muslim learners with lifelong linguistic and social knowledge for constructing conversational bridges for full participation in civic life at international level, abbreviated letter writing notes were already adapted to the cell-phone screen to be accessed by the learners via the SMS application. The final application was given to the participants for actual use and evaluation for a period of 1 academic semester. After the students had finished learning didactic messages, interactive SMS quizzes were sent to evaluate their performance. The analysis suggested that significant gains occurred as a result of mobile-based representation of shortened Islamic contents in English which was congruent with the learners’ favorable attitude towards embracing brevity for lifelong learning of TL contents via SMS.