Designing a Curriculum and Lexically Based Bilingual (Arabic-English) Teaching Materials for Basic Islamic Studies

Abstract

This study, using an action research design, aims at designing a curriculum and developing lexically based bilingual (Arabic-English) teaching materials for three Islamic senior high schools in Malang. The newly developed materials were brought into experimentation: 25 research subjects in the Study Program of Arabic Language Teaching (15 undergraduate students from Universitas Negeri Malang and 10 graduate students from UIN Malang) joined a training of trainers (TOT) using the new materials. According to these teacher-students, the results of TOT are satisfactory and encouraging. They enjoyed teaching the new materials; for they are simple and easy to teach, well-organized under religious themes of Islam, and interesting to both teachers and learners. As for the feedback, they gave three suggestions: (1) the materials should be developed for all proficiency levels; (2) references to Qur’anic dictionaries and books on Tafseer (Qur’anic Interpretation) should be added to materials for advanced students; and (3) simple language games and songs should be added to all materials for enrichment and refreshing purposes.