ArabicTutor: a Multimedia m-Learning Platform for Learning Arabic Spelling and Vocabulary

Abstract

Internet-enabled Mobile devices are increasingly used for enhancing the learning experience particularly for language learning. They can be exploited to allow learners to access and interact with multimedia learning resources from anywhere and at any time while offering an enhanced user experience. There are many systems for English learning such as SpellingCity.com. However there aren’t many such mobile learning tools for Arabic. In this context, this paper addresses the need to leverage mobile-supported learning to ease learning Arabic. We report the experience of designing and developing a multimedia m-Learning platform (named ArabicTutor) for interactive learning of Arabic spelling and vocabulary. It uses interactive game-like delivery methods to acquire new linguistic skills in playful manner using the capabilities of modern mobile devices with multitouch technologies. The proposed platform provides an environment of authoring Arabic learning content and delivering it to the end-users in interactive, intuitive and enjoyable way. The learning content is organized into packages that contain a list of word, the different meanings of words with example sentences and multimedia illustrations. The package also contains other related linguistic and morphological information such as parts of speech of example sentences and their diacritization.