A Pilot Study on Vocabulary Learning Strategies for Arabic as a Foreign Language Learners

Abstract

In learning Arabic as a foreign language, awareness of using certain learning strategies can help students to improve their vocabulary. However, the development of this field of knowledge for foreign language in the university has not yet received widespread attention among researchers in Malaysia. As an intitiave, this study was conducted to identify the reliability and validity of questionnaire for Arabic vocabulary learning strategies that will be used in the actual study later on, and also to obtain an early overview of the strategies used in this pilot study. This survey involved 30 students who took the Arabic subject as a foreign language at Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Perlis. The results showed that the reliability of this questionnaire was high with Cronbach's alpha value 0.96 for all 73 items. Students were found to use strategies at a moderate level as a whole and based on the constructs. Most students often used note-taking strategies in learning Arabic vocabulary, while the least used strategy was metacognitive strategies. In conclusion, the level of students’ awareness in using strategies is still unsatisfactory. Based on this study, teachers can take special initiatives in the teaching process by exposing various vocabulary learning strategies to help students becoming more independent in mastering Arabic vocabulary.