Arabic Language Acquisition in Open and Distance Learning: The Relationship between Lecturers' Teaching Strategies and Student Understanding

Abstract

Since COVID-19 shutdown has forced open and distant learning (ODL) to take centre stage in teaching and learning sessions, learning a new language requires both lecturers and students to be dedicated to completing the language course's goals within the allotted semester. Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) has offered Arabic as an optional subject for over 20 years and considers it a difficult language to learn. The teaching methods used by language lecturers have a direct impact on how well students learn a new language. To find out whether Arabic language lecturers' teaching methods have an impact on students' comprehension at UiTM, this research is being conducted. Three campuses in the UiTM South Zone (Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, and Johor) were easily chosen for this research, with a total of 348 students responding. Data were analysed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) and Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), which analyses data via correlation analysis. According to the descriptive analysis, the majority of respondents were female, between the ages of 19 and 21, and enrolled in a fouryear college programme. According to the results of the correlation study, Arabic language lecturers' teaching methods have a good and significant impact on students' comprehension. You might sum it up by saying that lecturers' efforts in outlining course objectives and teaching on a weekly schedule were well received by the students. Additionally, students felt that feedback from lecturers on their assessments and the use of technology in teaching and learning sessions improved their comprehension.