Tahfiz Students’ Attitudes and Motivation in L2 Learning: Through the Eyes of English Teachers

Abstract

Nowadays, English remains one of the most essential international languages covering various spheres namely entertainment, politics, business, culture, and education. Another area which is also worthy to be investigated is the religious matters. In Malaysia, there has been an increasing demand and inclination for parents to enrol their children in Tahfiz schools and institutions with the hope to shape the children into morally upright individuals. Generally, Tahfiz students possess high Islamic-related knowledge, and due to the Islamic focussed subjects, Arabic instead of the English language is emphasised. This has caused the majority of Tahfiz students to have poor English performance. With a broader aspiration of becoming international Da’ie (preachers), it is imperative for these students to be proficient in the English language. If this issue is neglected, Malaysian Tahfiz students would be left behind, failing to take the centre stage in disseminating Islam to the international world, causing dismay and frustration since they possess high level of Islamic knowledge and wisdom, and are expected to uphold the holiness of Islam. Thus, this paper sought to deliver an understanding regarding the attitudes and motivation in English language learning among Tahfiz students. Framed within the qualitative research design, data were collected through focus group interviews with English teachers at selected Tahfiz schools in Selangor, Malaysia to capture their views concerning the attitudes and motivation of their students in learning English.  On the whole, three main themes were identified in relation to Tahfiz students’ attitudes and motivation in learning English from the teachers’ viewpoint which are: 1) a mixture of positive and negative outlook, 2) purposeful language learning and 3) Islamic drives. These key findings are worthy areas to focus on as they can serve as a yardstick to assist the upgrading of Tahfiz students to a higher and respectable standing. The study also contributes to the literature of attitudes and motivation by describing a unique context of Tahfiz students—a rare setting—yet a commendable one, to provide better insights into this group of students in relation to mastering the English language. This study bridges the gap regarding L2 attitudes and motivation in Tahfiz setting. Uncovering the attitudes and motivation of Tahfiz students enables a revived language pedagogy to be implemented for this special group of students. Nevertheless, future studies with comparable context, e.g., Tahfiz in other ASEAN countries, should be conducted to arrive at more conclusive decisions.