A Systematic Review on Internet of Things in Language Practice

Language is a necessary component in our life as we need it to communicate with each other. It is important to provide more alternatives and resources to the language learners to effectively learn and master the language well. In fact, the growth of technology has made impact on the educational aspects over the years. Particularly, researchers are exploring the potential for the Internet of Things to help learners in language learning. Even though different learning and teaching applications on various types of learning devices have been developed to enhance language learning and teaching practices; nonetheless, the systematic review studies on the Internet of Things in language practice are still limited. Therefore, this paper aims to fill in this research gap by presenting a systematic review of the Internet of Things in language practice with the purpose to provide an overview of how Internet of Things has been utilised in language learning in the educational institution. By searching the key words via numerous electronic databases, a total of 288 papers was found. After eliminating articles that did not fulfil the requirements, only 17 articles were chosen and analysed in this paper. This paper analysed these selected articles for the types of languages being focused on, the types of technology used in language learning, its purpose, effects and examples. Based on the analysis of the results, most of the studies have designed new technology tools that are used to enhance learners’ language competency, including children, primary school students and university students. The findings also found these technology tools focus on different types of languages. Among these languages, English language is the most popular language that researches have studied. Moreover, most of the studies also reported that learners’ language competency was improved due to the implementation of Internet of Things. Lastly, it is suggested that more relevant future research should be conducted.