To ban or not to ban?

The topic of the use of mobile and smart phones is one that often comes up in our staff room. Do we allow our learners to bring them to class? Do we ban them completely and have them leave them in their bags? Do we restrict how they use them? Perhaps our institution has a policy, but do all of the teachers apply this policy? And if not, what implications does it have for the teachers that do. I feel that recently I've been spending a lot of time trying to get my learners' attention. Their phones seem to have become an extension of their hands. Am I just too old-fashioned or is the situation getting out of control? I could go on to list more and more questions, but how about we look at some solutions before we get a headache?!

Some reasons for the overuse of phones:

• Location - if your learners have travelled abroad to study, they are in a foreign country away from their family and friends and will more than likely be anxious to keep in touch with them.
• Age - Adolescents and young adults will want to contact their friends as much as possible. They will try all of the tricks in the book to continue texting, Whatsapping, Facebooking etc
• Work - Some adult learners will have work commitments and sometimes need to make urgent phone calls or send important e-mails.
• Translation - many learners now come to class equipped with a dictionary or translator on their phone.

Options:

• Introduce a complete ban of phones. Tell them to leave them in their bags or perhaps have a box at the top of the classroom where they can leave them when they come in. (If you do this, it might be an idea to have dictionaries available for them).
• Follow school policy - Talk to your Director of Studies, Senior teacher or to other teachers in your institution. Ask if there is already a policy in place and if not, what do they do or suggest.
• Create your own policy - Talk to your students and come up with a policy that you're all happy with. Include them in the decision. Giving them some agency in this way might motivate them and encourage them to use their phones less or in a more effective way. Get creative and have the class design posters for the classroom or the school if you'd like to expand the policy beyond your classroom.
• Allow the current situation to continue, let your students do what they want while you become more frustrated and miserable!
• Incorprate phones into your lessons and demonstrate how your learners can use them to help them in their studies. There is a huge variety of apps available for Smart phones, Androids and iPhones. If learners enjoy using their phones, using apps could engage and motivate them. My favourites are Sounds: The Pronunciation App by Macmillan and My Word Book by the British Council. We can also use them in other ways, for example, for dictations, we can write the dictation down in a message or memo. We can also use our photos as inspiration for conversation. (Thanks must go to Nicky Hockly who gave me these ideas at the IATEFL LT SIG Conference here in Dublin a few weeks ago.) There are also many more possibilities.

So, in short, yes we all survived perfectly well before mobile phones, but now that they are here and part of our every day lives, perhaps we should adapt to them and allow our teaching to develop just as it has with so many other changes that have come about over the years.