تصورات المعلمين حول أهداف تعليم اللغة العربية فى المدارس العربية ببروناي وآثرها فى أدائهم المهني

Abstract

The ambiguous objectives for teaching the Arabic language in Brunei's Arabic schools led the researcher to investigate teachers’ perceptions toward the intended objectives of teaching the Arabic language that are to be achieved within various levels of teaching. Furthermore, the consequences of such perceptions on their teaching and evaluation practices are examined. For this purpose, a qualitative approach was applied by conducting a series of interviews, as well as observations, and document reviews with the aim to ascertain answers for the research questions. Based on the accumulated and analyzed data, the researcher found that, in general, teachers perceive the teaching of the Arabic language is aimed toward better understanding the sources of Islamic knowledge and sciences. Therefore no written statement clearly stating this objective is needed. Furthermore, the collected data fails to indicate any corresponding significance between the syllabus for the instruction of the Arabic language and that for the Holy Quran. No written general objectives outside of the behavioural objectives to be achieved have been recorded for any level of study. Teachers solely rely on text books to develop the students’ language competency to the extent that such text books have become the single focus in teaching. Student language performance is assessed through tests and examinations. The examination board, in cooperation with teachers, conduct public examinations in order to measure student performance based on what the committee has decided should be tested which is largely based on its officers’ past experiences. In this regard, the researcher recommends the establishment of a special committee to prepare a template of objectives’ statements for the every level of Arabic language instruction base on research findings and the behavioural objectives written by teachers in their teaching notes. This template has the potential to act as a set of guidelines for teachers of the Arabic language in their planning, teaching and evaluation.