WritePlus. Improving students’ written expression

Last updated on 1 July 2024

How to help undergraduate students improve written expression and French in general? This ambitious task is being tackled by a brand new platform developed by the university community: write+

A great platform that gradually opens its doors. Slide to your favorites. It is particularly successful and completely free of charge and should be of interest to many students and teachers and not just to the university.

write+ allows you to assess your academic French skills through a particularly successful online platform open to all. It has just been launched. It now offers an assessment tool based on a system of questions and exercises on points that cover all the competences of written French. These competences are derived from a precise reference framework. However, the platform does not intend to stop there and should eventually offer training and national certification.

Identify your weak points in French to be able to work them

write+ is used in full autonomy on demand. The tool is built around an evaluation system with questions and exercises on points that cover all the skills of written French. Sixteen major skills are approached with a point system that allows to visualize its progress.

Everyone can assess their own level and develop their skills according to their needs.

The platform opened a few days ago and offers more than 2000 questions developed by teachers. The aim is to enrich the Pillar with around a thousand new questions each year.

Quiz, online dictated type dictaly and texts with holes punctuate the exercises in an interface with careful ergonomics. Each sequence of exercises gives rise to a self-correction. In case of error, EcriPlus offers clear explanations and resources to go further.

Offer training to improve students’ written expression

This is another of the objectives of writing+, after the evaluation, it is a matter of centralising resources that can be mobilised to train students and enable them to progress.

The writing+ platform makes it possible to identify its weak points in terms of both comprehension and written expression (spelling, grammar, syntax, … vocabulary). The next step is to try to improve them with available training resources.

To date, a complete MOOC is available, as well as courses with more than 50 modules. Eventually, a portal should provide access to other resources. The site is also intended to be a place for exchanges and sharing of experiences for teachers, who should eventually find forums and tools for peer-to-peer communication.

The project is under development. The third pillar, after evaluation and training, remains to be built. This is certification. A national certification, a fairly logical follow-up to the assessment and training pathways.

Nice work. I predict a bright future for this platform that targets undergraduate students in the first place, but which will interest far beyond teachers, students and students in France and in all countries of the Francophonie. The tool should also reach a business audience or ordinary citizens wishing to improve their level of French.

In short, a public utility. A quality service, free and open. This is in honour of what the public education service is able to offer to all.

The write+ project has beautiful people around its cradle. Led by the Open University of Humanities hosted at the University of Strasbourg, the project brings together a consortium of 24 partners (higher education and research institutions and technical partners). The first results are up to these prestigious sponsors.

Write + is part of my 2021 list of the best tools and services for education.