The Use of Mobile Phones as an Academic Tool to Acquire Vocabu-lary During English Learning as a Foreign Language in Ecuador

Several teachers are currently implementing more innovative, entertaining, and effective educational methods to teach English as a foreign language (EFL). One strategy is to use smartphones as an academic tool. Therefore, this research aims to analyze the usefulness of using smartphones in acquiring new vocabulary to develop communication skills. This work seeks to contribute to helping teachers and students who wish to learn a foreign language and acquire communication skills through the use of a popular device. Many children, youngsters, and adults, have at least one cellphone, and more since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when it was almost mandatory to use these powerful technological devices to do homework. Now, it is also used for communication and entertainment. This research used bibliographic documentation analysis of academic studies. The research focused on the search for bibliographic documentation of academic studies related to the topic. There are thousands of applications, blogs, and digital bases, many of them free, for people to access autonomous learning using mobile learning that they can do anywhere and at any time, as long as they are connected to the internet. The apps used in this research were Kahoot, hangman, and songs. The results of this research showed a significant communicational improvement. Smartphones help EFL students to create a more entertaining environment. Smartphones have managed to break shyness and improve concentration and participation in class. Therefore, the author recommends using this tool to acquire a new language.