"Learning Arabic: Writing with a pen or keyboard?"

Presentation of the project

With the introduction of digital tools in schools, the teaching and learning of key skills such as writing is likely to change considerably.

This research project is designed to study the effects on school performance, on the one hand, and the cognitive and cerebral consequences of a change in learning to write at school, on the other hand. It will involve comparing, over two years, a group of students learning to write directly on the keyboard, a group learning to write by hand on a tablet and a group learning traditional handwriting on paper.

The protocol will consist of teaching the Arabic language to three groups of 40 students for two years (6th and 5th grades) during which reading and writing tests will be conducted twice a year.

Objectives

• Compare different practices for learning to write a foreign language: directly on the keyboard, handwritten on a tablet and handwritten on paper. This is a longitudinal study (4 years) on the writing of Arabic.
• An inventory and analysis of all the work carried out in this field, as well as all the existing digital tools and applications for learning and re-educating writing, will be used to make recommendations on how to learn to write at school with and without digital tools.

Budget

Total budget: €362 232 (PIA)

Calendar

Start: 01/09/2016

Ends : 31/08/2020

Project Team

Carrier: Mr. Jean-Luc Velay, Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory (LNC)

Partners

• Partner laboratory: Learning, Didactics, Evaluation, Training (ADEF),
• Psycle
• LNC
• Aix-Marseille University
• 5 schools
• Company: BIC Espé* of Marseille