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The use of interactive whiteboards in teaching non-roman scripts

This study explores the use of the interactive whiteboards in teaching the non-Latin based orthographies of Hindi, Pashto, Dari, Persian (Farsi), and Hebrew. All these languages use non-roman scripts, and except for Hindi, they are cursive. Thus, letters within words are connected and for beginners the script may look quite complicated, incomprehensible and indecipherable. The shapes of the letters also change depending on if they are placed in word-initial, word-medial or word-final positions, causing additional difficulty for learners. Although the Hindi script is not cursive, it also creates difficulty for learners at beginning levels because it is crucial to know where to start and end the lines for each symbol in the alphabet with utmost precision. Surveys and questionnaires were distributed to seventy-five instructors teaching at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in Monterey, California. It is found that the interactive whiteboard appears to be a useful pedagogical multi-media tool to teach non-roman scripts.