This thesis investigated the attitudes, motivational orientations and demotivation of the non-Muslim Malaysian learners of Arabic (NMMLAs) as a foreign language in the Malaysian context. Adopting mixed method approach, questionnaire and semi-structured interview were selected for data collection involving 207 and 20 students respectively. Results indicate the NMMLAs’ highly positive attitude toward foreign languages, and moderately positive attitude toward native Arabic speakers and toward learning Arabic, where studying Arabic is not perceived negatively despite being a compulsory subject. Four types of underlying orientations toward learning Arabic were shown. The highest ranked is instrumental orientation, indicating a strong reason for learning Arabic to fulfil the university’s requirement. The NMMLAs show moderate attitude toward intrinsic and integrative orientation in learning Arabic. The NMMLAs’ responses also revealed a new type of orientation i.e. ethnic-relationship of learning Arabic, where learning Arabic can enhance the relationship between Malaysia’s ethnic groups. The NMMLAs’ immediate learning context attitude revealed the importance of teacher’s personality in motivating students, where intelligence, patience and humour are vital traits teachers should posses. The results show the significant impact of the learning context on the students’ motivation in learning Arabic. The NMMLAs view the nature of Arabic language as the most demotivating factor, where Arabic pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and writing are among the difficulties they encountered. Although teachers are perceived as the most important motivating factor, the NMMLAs also reported teachers’ teaching method and behaviour as the second demotivating factor. Other factors extracted are classroom, negative attitudes toward foreign languages, course materials, Arabic course’s compulsory nature, low score, time constraint, lacking opportunities to communicate in Arabic, self-inability and irrelevance to their study. Pedagogical recommendations were made to help ensure the NMMLAs’ instrumental, intrinsic and integrative motivation in learning Arabic. This study has provided new insights into teaching and learning Arabic particularly in broadening the horizon of teaching Arabic in Malaysian context.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:558645 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Aladdin, Ashinida |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=186622 |
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