MaltiTek website and verb guide transform Maltese language education
Maltese language brought into digital age
A new booklet, together with an innovative digital resource - Il-Verbi Maltin Onlajn - has been introduced, promising to become an essential tool for students and educators alike.
The project by Prof Antoinette Camilleri Grima and Dr Jacqueline Żammit marks a significant milestone in Maltese language education.
Alongside the Il-Verbi Maltin Onlajn booklet comes the MaltiTek website.
During the launch, Camilleri Grima emphasised the importance of human oversight in developing the MaltiTek system. While computational tools such as rule-based systems were useful for generating verb conjugations, she noted that these often produced linguistically inaccurate forms. Therefore, human correction was essential to ensure quality and usability.
Żammit highlighted the educational value of MaltiTek, explaining that the platform significantly supports verb acquisition, orthography, and grammar, and fosters autonomous learning.
Prof Antoinette Camilleri Grima giving the presentation.“The complexity of Maltese verbs, particularly the absence of a basic infinitive form and the challenges posed by verb chains necessitate a dedicated digital tool,” said Żammit.
She illustrated practical classroom applications, from daily verb exercises to vocabulary and grammar development, stressing MaltiTek’s effectiveness in supporting language skills at multiple levels.
Prof. Claudia Borg from the Department of Artificial Intelligence addressed the collaborative nature of the MaltiTek project, noting its integration with the existing Ġabra digital lexicon.
The project, supported by the University of Malta’s Seed Funds, merges expertise in applied linguistics contributed by Camilleri Grima and Żammit with artificial intelligence, developed in collaboration with Prof. Claudia Borg and Dr Marc Tanti.
Key university figures attended the successful launch, including Rector Prof. Alfred J. Vella, Pro-Rector Prof. Carmen Sammut, Dean of the Faculty of Education Prof. Colin Calleja, and Head of the Department of Languages and Humanities in Education, Chev. Prof. Mario Pace.