Cell phones in Chinese universities can be a bit of an issue. No cell phones in class is usually the key rule in college, but cell phone usage in some Chinese universities can be quite rampant. Some students say they study so hard in middle school, once they take their college entrance exams and make it to university, it’s party time!

Some colleges ban the usage of cell phones in class but the rule doesn’t seem to hold any stature—you might see Chinese teachers speaking into a microphone to a room full of students on their cell phones.

While it can be reflective of a western type situation, English class, (especially an oral class), begs to be interactive. This can be a big problem when your class is glued to their cell phones. What do you do about cell phone usage in class?

Ban Cell Phones

I have colleagues that ban cell phones from class entirely. If they see a student on their cell phone they will opt to either throw the student or the cell phone out of the classroom. This can be a super effective way of dealing with cell phone usage, but students need to have a way to translate or look up words as they usually use their phones.

These colleagues have told their classes to purchase a dictionary and students can only rely on this for translation, therefore, if they forget their dictionary, they are thrown out of class again.

While this is, again, a super effective strategy—I don’t like making the students purchase extra expensive books or carry more than they have to. I know they will inevitably forget their dictionary for one or two classes and they might miss something valuable.

It is definitely forcing them to rely on their knowledge and usage or fluency more, but for those students who aren’t a high level yet, it might be too difficult.

One Cell Phone per Group

Something I have done has been to limit the cell phones to one per study group of four or five people. That means the group must only rely on one person if they need a translation so this person is somewhat peer pressured to stay on task.

This can be pretty difficult as well, however. Usually, students will abuse this time and use it to chat and communicate on social media through their designated cell phone user. This can be monitored, of course, but it is difficult to do so.

Also, they might write or say full sentences to the designated cell phone user and the cell phone user will plug it into a translator online and call it good. These translations are always wrong and it is blatant plagiarism. This can also be monitored with varied results.

Limited Cell Phone Time

Some colleagues have limited cell phone usage to certain activities or times. If they are speaking one on one or with small groups, they will allow the students to use their cell phones. Maybe if there is an exam or some homework and a student finishes early they can use their cell phone.

Or perhaps they have assigned a project where students need to look up some information online and they are allowed to use their cell phones to do so. Cell phones can be a practical tool for some activities and times but this can be somewhat distracting and demotivating to other students.

Pretty soon, all the students will want to finish early, play on their cell phone during activities and save their projects to the last minute, or race to speak too quickly.

Collect Cell Phones

I have been using a box to collect cell phones during certain classes. This puts the cell phone out of the student’s mind and it is a signal that it is time to put away the distraction for a time and focus on learning and participating.

It can be quite difficult to pry the cell phones away from the students at first and it takes a bit of time to collect and distribute them in the beginning and end of class. The students are forced to use words and phrases taught during the lesson, however, and they don’t need to translate or look up any new words.

It also forces them to try to explain a word if they do want to translate something, which is a valuable tool in language learning.

Integrate Cell Phones

An idea I’m heading towards is integrating cell phones into the classroom. There are apps that can connect online quizzes, activities, games, and pop culture from my lesson onto the students’ cell phones.

I hope this does not become a slippery slope to fooling around on the cell phone but a valuable tool in the classroom to combat negative cell phone usage. If the student is interested in the activity, I think the cell phone can encourage and strengthen the activity and class.

It would be very hard to monitor and it would depend on the class whether or not they will abuse it.

My final project is a film the students will make on their cell phone. It’s cheap, convenient, and all the students know how to edit and make a great project with it. It’s easy for them to be creative, complete the project, and send the project to you via social media.

Cell phones can be a cheap and powerful tool in the classroom if utilized correctly. It is rampant and hard to monitor for misuse, however. Hopefully, these ideas will help in your classroom as every class is different!