Jordan's Minister of Education and Human Resource Development, Dr. Azmi Mahafzah, recently called for the activation of the Siraj e-learning platform and for full use of its new smart features, saying they should be leveraged to develop students' English-language skills. The minister made the remarks at a recent expanded planning committee meeting.
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Two education experts told Al Ghad that adding these features represents a meaningful and qualitative step forward in English-language learning. They said the platform can enrich all four core skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing - through interactive activities and varied media suited to different learning styles. It also enables flexible, self-directed learning, allowing students to study at a time and pace that suits them, extending their exposure to the language beyond the classroom.
Muneeb Tashmane, director of the Queen Rania Centre for Information Technology at the Ministry of Education, said the platform has been developed to go beyond traditional content delivery. Artificial intelligence is now used to offer interactive activities and exercises, analyse student performance, and provide feedback that helps students improve across all four English skills.
Tashmane told Al Ghad that these features are being rolled out gradually, in line with the ministry's plan, with the current phase focusing on targeted grade levels within the activation programme and coordinated with schools, teachers and supervisors to ensure effective use.
On speaking skills specifically, he said the smart features provide students with greater opportunities to practise conversation and interaction in English through activities that simulate real-life communication situations, giving students the chance to practise repeatedly and receive feedback that helps them improve their language use and build confidence.
Tashmane said the platform also accounts for individual differences between students. It analyses each student's performance and interaction with activities to deliver exercises and content better matched to their level and learning needs, enabling a gradual progression from activities suited to their current level toward more advanced tasks as their performance improves.
The platform also provides data and indicators on students' engagement and performance across different activities and skills, he added. This allows teachers, supervisors and the ministry to monitor progress, identify strengths and learning gaps, and make data-driven decisions about interventions and support.
On measuring impact, Tashmane said the effect of the smart features will be tracked through several indicators, including improvement in English skills, participation and usage rates, progress in assessment and activity results, development of speaking skills, and overall student performance relative to their learning levels.
Education expert Faisal Tayeh said the addition of new smart features to Siraj is a positive and forward-looking step that opens wider scope for technology to support language learning and increase opportunities for practice and interaction. He cautioned, however, that the value of these tools depends not on the presence of artificial intelligence in itself but on how correctly it is applied to learning.
Tayeh said language learning requires more than memorising vocabulary and grammar rules; it demands continuous practice in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Smart tools give students additional opportunities to practise and interact at their own level and according to their needs, and provide more space for individual practice - particularly important given that students in a traditional classroom do not always have sufficient time to speak or read in front of the teacher.
He said audio and interactive tools allow students to practise repeatedly, try again, and receive feedback that helps them correct pronunciation, understand texts and use vocabulary in different contexts. Some schools, he noted, have already begun applying Siraj's audio features to improve reading, pronunciation and comprehension.
Tayeh stressed that the most important point is to ensure the platform does not become a tool that simply supplies ready-made answers. A student receiving an answer from artificial intelligence and moving straight to the next question does not represent genuine learning, he said. The tools have greater impact when they prompt students to think, try again, explain their reasoning, use new vocabulary in sentences, hold conversations in English, and correct their mistakes gradually.
He said the success of the Siraj experience does not rest on the technology alone. The teacher's role remains central, and artificial intelligence should expand the English teacher's ability to monitor and support students rather than replace them. Teachers can use data from student interactions with the platform to identify recurring weaknesses and address them in the classroom, design additional activities for students who need support, and assign more challenging tasks to advanced students.
Tayeh added that the effectiveness of the experience also requires the right tool combined with a teacher who can deploy it, a student who uses it actively and regularly, adequate devices and connectivity, teacher training, and integration of platform-linked activities into the learning plan - making Siraj an extension of the educational process rather than a separate add-on. Technology has its greatest impact, he said, when it is embedded in the learning situation itself rather than treated as a technical supplement.
Education expert Ayesh Al-Nwayseh said the addition of smart features to Siraj represents a qualitative step forward - not only in developing the platform, but in shifting the student from a passive recipient of information to an active learner at the centre of the educational experience, through learning that is personalised and designed around individual needs and abilities.
Al-Nwayseh said Siraj offers adaptive learning pathways that account for each student's level and performance, automatically adjusting the difficulty of activities. This allows the platform to identify each student's capabilities rather than applying a single standard to all, enhancing attention to individual differences and delivering more personalised learning.
The platform also provides immediate feedback, he said, correcting errors in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation at the moment they occur. This helps prevent mistakes from becoming entrenched and turns them into timely learning and correction opportunities.
Al-Nwayseh highlighted the platform's pronunciation and conversation practice features as particularly valuable. Students can practise their pronunciation, compare it against a reference model, and hold conversations with AI assistants. This creates a low-anxiety learning environment that reduces the fear of making mistakes or facing embarrassment, strengthens students' motivation to communicate and learn, and helps them overcome the psychological and emotional barriers associated with using a new language.
He said the platform also enriches all four core English skills - listening, speaking, reading and writing - through interactive activities and varied media suited to different learning styles, while enabling flexible self-directed learning. Students can study at their own time and pace, extending their exposure to the language beyond the classroom and removing the restriction that learning must take place within the classroom walls.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad.
