نشریه دراسات فی تعلیم اللغه العربیه و تعلمها
پیاپی 12 (پاییز و زمستان 1401)

A textbook is a useful educational tool. Analyzing this tool improves the quality of education. The Book of “Al-Raid in Teaching Arabic Language: The Book of Composition”, by Masoud Fekri (2019) is one of the educational resources for Arabic writing skills in Iran. This book is designed in three volumes that teach writing skills in three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. The aim of this study is to promote the methodical critique in the preparation and compilation of textbooks and eliminate possible errors in them. The study uses a descriptive-analytical approach with standardized questionnaire as a tool and evaluation criteria of McDonough and Shaw’s model to evaluate this textbook. Two groups of students and teachers make up the statistical population of this study. Twenty-five students of the University of Islamic Religions, Tehran Branch, who have read three volumes of Raid’s book in three semesters of the academic years 2020-2022 in online classes due to corona virus restrictions, and five instructors of the Arabic writing skills course have also analyzed the book. Findings show that according to the students, this book has a positive effect on improving the learner’s writing skills and teachers have also given positive reviews about the role of this book in writing skills. Of course, there are some shortcomings that can be pointed out: the unavailability of the book’s audio files, the lack of use of diagrams and images to help better understand the concepts, and the not specifying the target audience of the book.

“Children’s fictional literature” is a suitable tool for educating Iranian young people for two reasons: it is an original and attractive art that works to develop their linguistic and expressive skills, and provides them with interesting images; also it has qualities that distinguish it from other literary genres (poetry, novels, and drama), which makes it more suitable for foreign language classes. However, the problem of choosing educational content, and selecting meaningful and appropriate story texts based on the features of learners, stands in the way of achieving this goal, because it is a process that needs accuracy and good choice in view of the factors and standards surrounding the learners and their environment, and modern methods of education. Moreover, the educational program for Arabic language in the middle stage in Iran was not intended to choose original fictional texts from Arabic children’s fictional literature, so employing children’s fictional literature in teaching Arabic to children and adolescents in Iran has become a matter worthy of attention to obtain the scientific criteria for the selection of appropriate texts to teach Arabic in Middle school. So this study suggests a solution to this problem based on the descriptive-analytical approach. Whereas the results of the study concluded that the important criteria for choosing the appropriate educational content for employing the children’s story are summarized for the safety of the language and the correct cultural use of it, cultural sharing in religious values and the distance from monotony and linguistic dryness in order to increase linguistic competence, and develop the ability to understand and enjoy the fictional text. Thus, it would be a starting point in building a new curriculum suitable for Iranian children and young people in the current era.

Self-regulation will result in educational enthusiasm or engagement which is known as a psychological investment and a direct attempt for learning, understanding, and mastering the required knowledge and skills and finally, results in an improvement in educational performance. Arabic language is a mandatory course in the educational system in our country. In the meantime, many students face problems and are not successful in learning Arabic for various reasons. In this study, we investigated the self-regulatory skills and educational engagement of high school students in online Arabic language courses. This study was performed using a descriptive (correlation) method. The statistical population consisted of high school students in the city of Gorgan in the academic year 2020-2021. From among 560 completed questionnaires, 536 accurately completed ones were examined as the study sample. Data collection instruments included Bouffard educational Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ) and Reeve Academic Engagement Scale. Questionnaires were analyzed by statistical methods in the SPSS software. The results indicated that, due to a significant relationship, the effects of self-regulatory skills and academic enthusiasm of students in online Arabic language courses could be confirmed. There is no significant difference between male and female students in terms of the general educational engagement in online teaching of Arabic language courses. However, more behavioral and emotional tendency to learn Arabic lessons was observed in the male students in the subscales of educational engagement. In terms of self-regulation, there was no significant difference between male and female students in online teaching of Arabic language courses. Taking into account the effects of self-regulatory learning skills and educational engagement in online teaching of Arabic language courses, it would be possible to enhance the students’ academic performance and their success in foreign language courses, especially Arabic, through using appropriate and adequate data in this field and designing, procurement and implementation of appropriate educational programs.

Culture as an important element has been intensively used by textbook authors recently. Culture is one of the most intriguing criteria encouraging students to learn a foreign language. Sadi Alhayat textbook series written for non-Arabic language learners in Iran are considered the most popular educational series in this field. This textbook has been written for all Arabic language learners all over the world, which is why the researchers have focused on this collection. The researchers have studied various elements and the most prominent criteria of world culture as well as the extent to which these cultural elements have been embedded in Sadi Al-Hayat. A mixed-method approach was adopted to tap into this research’s questions. All the 13 volumes of Sadi Al-Hayat were scrutinized and all the pictures, texts, audio files related to world culture were collected and analyzed qualitatively. The findings showed that the authors of Sadi Al-Hayat  textbook series have used only 57 items which refer to world culture, including names, information about countries and cities, personality traits, sports, events as well as some general global information.

There are two scientific and educational approaches to writing in the field of grammar. One of the characteristics of the educational method is to focus on mentioning the rules and not mentioning the differences. Paying attention to these things is in the hope that the learner will understand the language rules and consider them in speaking or writing. Another important aspect is that the educational method facilitates the way to understanding the phrase beyond the words. This method’s characteristics make the audience think, which is seen clearly in Sibawayh’s book. He does not attach particular importance to the evaluation of speech or writing, but he is serious in explaining the meanings to the audience, whether in the context of The Qur’an or other texts. The second method in addition to describing linguistic phenomena, explains them about other phenomena. This type of writing is about permissible and impermissible, causality and syntactic justification. The authors of the article believe that Sibawayh’s book is oriented towards the educational method because in all parts of the book there are evidences indicating the use of the mentioned characteristics in this method. We also studied the evidences in Al-Ketab and applied them to the Mojarrad infinitive of this book. On the other hand, it should be known that Sibawayh was not completely oblivious to the scientific aspect of Al-Ketab; rather, the issue of the dominance of the educational method is at the core of his book.

The dictionaries used by learners of Arabic who speak Persian are generally not written on the basis of needs analysis and a comprehensive comparison between the learners L1 and the target language. These dictionaries also lack interesting images. Such issues lead to ambiguity and create problems and obstacles in learning Arabic for Iranian students. This study discusses the main criteria for compiling an Arabic learner dictionary for those learners who speak Persian as their L1. The study is based on a comparative analysis of the common vocabulary in Arabic and Persian in the field of linguistic needs in order to provide a lexical material with common and popular vocabulary that summarizes the time and effort required to learn Arabic words and meanings. The study then reviews the progress achieved in the design of the glossary of the words common to Iranian learners of Arabic, with the aim of making an active contribution to the teaching of the Arabic language to speakers of Persian. The conclusion of the study is that providing a list of words divided into different areas as images of an educational dictionary will have a significant impact on students’ learning of writing skills. The comparative analysis between Arabic and Persian languages and knowledge of similarities and differences through sentences and scripts from both languages will contribute to speeding up learning Arabic and its skills by Iranian students.

In today’s world, attention to contemporary Arabic literature has increased more than ever. In many Arab and non-Arab countries, in addition to the course of contemporary Arabic literature, which deals with contemporary literature at the level of Arab countries, especially at the beginning of the movement, a separate course is provided for the contemporary literature of those countries. In Algeria, at the master’s and doctoral levels, there is an educational orientation called Contemporary Algerian Literature. In recent years, there was a course called Arabic Literature in Iran in the undergraduate curriculum, which was later removed from the curriculum. In this research, we intend to represent this course at the master’s level by justifying the necessities of doing this course. Finally, by presenting a proposed program for this course, we are trying to prove that it is necessary to offer this course in the master’s course. Based on the findings of this study, we will notice that if this lesson is presented again and correctly, it will revive a large part of the works of contemporary Iranian writers and Arabic poets, and as a result, it will revive an important part of the history and culture of Iran. The requirements for adding this course to Arabic literature curriculum are: designing a curriculum based on needs assessment, writing a suitable educational book before presenting, providing a training course to acquaint professors with the content of this course, and launching a specialized journal of Arabic literature in Iran.

Language learners’ use of metacognitive strategies as one of the most important factors for developing thinking plays an important role in improving their understanding of audio texts. Therefore, the current research tries to identify the use of metacognitive strategies of audio text comprehension by Iranian Arabic learners on the one hand by using the descriptive-survey method, and on the other hand, the presence or absence of a significant difference in the use to evaluate these strategies based on two variables: academic semester and gender. In order to research these goals, a questionnaire called (MALQ) was prepared which was completed by 180 students of Arabic language and literature in Iran’s public universities as a statistical sample. The findings showed: students have used all metacognitive strategies related to understanding audio texts to a great extent. Students have benefited most from problem solving strategies, planning-evaluation, mental translation, directed attention and individual knowledge respectively in understanding the audio text. Statistically, there is no significant difference between the opinions of male and female students of different academic semesters regarding the use of metacognitive strategies to understand the audio text.

One of the most important and effective measures in teaching Arabic language to non-Arabic speakers is the assessment of textbooks, and it is better to rely on a standard questionnaire. The present study is a quantitative–qualitative research and it has been done on “Skierso, 1991” Questionnaire. The questionnaire is designed to assess the textbooks which accompany the teacher’s guide book. In this study, we will investigate the Arabic language book, which is taught in Iranian schools as well as its teacher’s guide book. The study data, which was collected according to 150 Arabic language teachers’ opinions, shows that the textbooks presented in the 10th level Arabic language book is appropriate topically as well as from a literary point of view. However, the practice mainly helps improve translation skills and conversation to some extent, while it does not play a role in developing fluency in reading and writing skills. The teacher’s guide book has also a fundamental drawback as it lacks a variety of teaching methods as well as solving exercises.

Motivation plays an essential role in every person’s life to persevere and do a job. It determines the quality of behavior and the result of one’s efforts at all stages of life. Accordingly, a man does not start an activity unless there is incentive, motivation, and purpose behind it. This applies to learning processes, especially second language learning. This article tries to study the effect of motivation in learning Arabic as a second language among undergraduate students at Iranian public universities based on the theory of ‘internal self-motivation system” and using two descriptive-analytical and survey approaches, also identify the various factors affecting this. To identify motivational factors, sixteen variables of this theory have been studied. The tool of this research is a questionnaire designed by Dorney and Taguchi (2010). The research sample includes 1107 male and female undergraduate students who entered the university during the years 2017-2020. SPSS software was used to analyze the data. Structural model design and relationship detection between variables was based on Amos software. Finally, this study points out that according to the coefficients obtained in the Pearson correlation matrix, the factors of attitude towards learning Arabic ideal second language self-instrumental incentives and “attitude to Arabic culture and society” have the highest positive correlation with the target effort variable, respectively. The target effort variable has received the most direct impact from its ideal language variable, and the rest of its direct effects are due to the attitude to learning Arabic variable.

Pragmatics is a branch of modern linguistics that is concerned with the use of language – and here Arabic – according to the context of speech in communicative situations. Therefore, pragmatic issues are of great importance for their vital role in the success of communicating with native speakers; accordingly, teaching the pragmatics of Arabic language is a necessary and important matter for Iranian students in the classrooms. One of the best ways to teach it is using modern technologies due to their effectiveness in attracting students and simulating Arabic language environment for them. The present research has investigated the teaching of pragmatics using the descriptive-analytical method by highlighting the two techniques of computer games and PowerPoint and explaining using them inside or outside the classroom through the Brock and Nagasaka curriculum. Researching computer games, it has been found that they can be used for teaching pragmatics; since their effectiveness lies in designing a virtual environment similar to the real environment of Arabic language for the Iranian students. The research also presented different ways of using computer games within pragmatics teaching, either directly or indirectly according to the Brock and Nagasaka curriculum. Another result of the research is that the PowerPoint software is suitable for teaching pragmatics by designing an interactive program through it. It can be used in the use step or within the experiment step of the Brock and Nagasaka steps. Since it breaks the monotonous atmosphere of the class, it makes it attractive, facilitates learning, and strengthens students’ pragmatic awareness.

Due to the importance of virtual teaching in universities, the Adobe Connect network has been used to facilitate communication between students and professors, especially during the Corona era, and Arabic language is also one of the university courses in Iran during the Corona era. Connection is taught, and of course, teaching in this network has caused many challenges to both sides of the communication, which are discussed in this essay. In this research, considering the novelty of the topic, the advantages and disadvantages of virtual education in Arabic language in Kosar University of Bojnord, with the aim of determining the quality of virtual education, showing the amount of learning in virtual space and the extent of teacher adherence to class rules, curricula and teaching methods and determining the quality of educational content in the course of virtual education and the problems and obstacles of virtual education from the perspective of Arabic language and literature students. The method of this research is descriptive and comparative. The findings of the research indicate that from the students’ point of view, the quality of virtual education in the field of Arabic language and literature at Kosar University in Bajnord is positive and significant. In addition, the amount of this difference is as much as 13.86 and more than the average value of the students’ views of the real society. Also, lack of comprehensiveness of the Adobe Connect network in terms of technology and software, financial poverty of some students in accessing mobile phones or tablets, lack of an effective strategy in the culture of using virtual space, the damage done to Arabic language due to the inappropriate use of sentences and words, the increase in workload, and pressurizing families financially are among the disadvantages of virtual learning.