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Years ago, learning only took place within the classrooms walls where the teacher was the ultimate source of knowledge, but this situation has been completely different since the dawn of the information and communication technologies.

The first major “communication technology” to have an impact was the establishment of a postal service throughout the British Empire. It meant that bureaucrats ruling India could obtain open and distance learning materials via the mail. They would read the books and study materials, and then write essays, which they would send back to the UK for marking.

The next major communication technology to affect teaching and learning was the radio. This was used in many nations in which the population was widely scattered – in Australia in the 1950’s, for example, many children on farms in the outback would get their lessons

by means of children’s radio (see at: http://www.australia.gov.au/about-

australia/australian-story/school-of-the-air). At this stage, the teaching method was largely uni-directional and didactic, but individual students could contact their teachers by means of short wave radio. This changed with the widespread use of the land line telephone, which allowed students to talk to teachers on a one-to-one basis.

The next major development was television, which allowed broadcast of both sound and vision, but was still uni-directional (distance students couldn’t interact with the teacher and each other).

The world’s first open and distance learning university to use this technology was the UK Open University, set up in 1969, because it was heavily reliant on television, it was

originally going to be called “The University of the Air”

(http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/historyofou/story/1963-65-the-university-the- air). However, even then, the Open University was heavily reliant on the postal service; learning materials, including video cassettes, would be sent out by post to students, and students would send their assessments in by post. Students would meet face to face with their tutors at regional summer schools. The Open University used to produce very high quality learning materials to send out to students, because they had very large numbers of students, the costs of writing and printing these materials per student was relatively low.

The arrival of email and the internet revolutionised open and distance learning. Firstly, learning materials (printed, plus sight and sound) could be sent great distances at no cost, as could students’ assignments. Second, learning materials could be quickly and easily re- engineered and updated. Thirdly, students, although geographically separated, could now interact directly with each other and their tutor via emails, bulletin boards and (more recently) video conferencing, at little or no cost. At this stage, the technology was relatively cumbersome, as televisions and computers were large and heavy. Consequently, open and distance learning had high connectivity, but was geographically situated in the class room, or at home. However, the development of mobile technologies (smart phones, tablets, phablets, etc.) meant that learning no longer needed to be

situated, but could be done on the move – anywhere, anytime. Keegan (2002) has argued that, in correspondence to the influence on society of the Industrial Revolution of the 18th to 19th centuries, the Electronics Revolution of the 1980s and the Wireless Revolution of the last years of the 20th century, have caused an evolution in education and a move from distance learning to e-learning to mobile learning.

On the other hand, conventional universities also started to use ICTs for online delivery for off-campus courses, and use blended learning for on-campus students. The use of new technologies in these universities means that the differences between distance education and traditional teaching and learning are becoming less distinct. Consequently, the impact of new technologies on higher education has been profound, and it has caused academics to undertake research into the efficacy of face to face teaching, and raised the fundamental question: is computer enabled education (e-learning and blended learning) more successful and cheaper than conventional face to face delivery? However, e- learning and blended learning are not just different ways of delivering content, as to be successful they require fundamental changes in the roles of both students and teachers across subject areas.

In the field of English as a foreign language (EFL), research findings provide evidence that that students and teachers can succeed in learning and teaching EFL more effectively using ICTs (Alnujaidi, 2008; Bañados, 2006). Rahimi, Azhan, Normeza, & Baharudin (2015) argued that while the pedagogy of language still focuses on traditional face-to-face teaching and learning, it has become more prevailing and influential when using ICTs. They stated that “language pedagogy in particular, through the years, has undergone many transformations with the advent of ICT, including interactive TV, internet, and the latest, social media networks” (p. 170).

Despite the increasingly widespread access to ICTs, as well as their functionality, and the opportunities they create, many higher education institutions and EFL instructors do not take the advantage of recent advances of ICTs. Nevertheless, with the rapid pace of change in ICTs, there is a regular need for regular investigation on how these technologies can be utilized to support foreign language learning and teaching. Furthermore, it is not only the multiplicity of ICTs, as Stockwell (2012) highlighted several diverse issues with regard to the relationship between technology and language learning that might affect the way we view, use, and evaluate ICTs in language learning. According to Stockwell

(2012), many aspects can shape and make each application of ICTs a unique experience; among those are the diversity in environments in which ICTs are used, the diversity in pedagogies employed, the diversity in the users of ICTs, and the diversity in the research methods. However, any change in one area possibly influences the others and generate new knowledge. Therefore, there is always a need for further examination to guide the potential generalizations.

Among the different waves of ICTs, mobile technologies are developing rapidly, as the whole world is relying more on these handheld devices. This revolution has radically changed our social and economic lifestyles. As many educational institutions and educational projects have inaugurated the use of mobile technologies to enhance learning and teaching and facilitate administrative issues, a new educational concept has been launched, i.e., mobile learning (m-learning). It has been increasingly embedded in higher education, and educators have presented papers on it and discussed it frequently, in related events like the annual MLEARN Conference and International Workshop on Mobile and Wireless Technologies in Education (WMTE), sponsored by IEEE. Definitions of mobile learning can state obviously its attributes as a new trend in education.