Analisis Butir Soal Latihan pada Buku al-Naḥw al-Wāḍīḥ untuk Siswa Madrasah Aliyah

Practice questions are the main part of every textbook, especially to evaluate and measure students’ abilities and skills. One of the books that are often used as a textbook by various madrasas and Islamic boarding schools on learning naḥwu for beginners is the al-Naḥw al-Wāḍīḥ. Unfortunately, this book has not determined the quality in the validity of practice for the lesson, because it was written by an Arabic native speaker. So, the target of this book is not for non-native Arabic speakers. This study uses a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative to describe a more complete picture of item analysis. The purpose of this study was to determine the quality of practice questions in the al-Naḥw al-Wāḍīḥ book in terms of validity, reliability, level of difficulty, and discriminating power. The results obtained are, (1) 93% of the exercise sample is under content validity; (2) from the results of the ANOVA test of two exercise samples, this test is quite reliable; (3) the difficulty level of the sample practice questions on naḥwu is fairly easy; (4) the discriminating power of the nahwu sample is sufficient. Thus, the analysis of practice questions in al-Naḥw al-Wāḍīḥ is sufficient to measure students’ abilities.

THE PERCEPTION OF ARABIC VOWEL DURATION BY L1 HEBREW SPEAKERS

The acquisition of a second language (L2) may be challenging in adulthood, as the phonological system of the native language (L1) can sometimes limit the perception of phonological contrasts in L2. The present study aimed to (a) examine the influence of an L1 (Hebrew) that lacks a phonemic contrast for vowel length on the ability to discriminate between short and long vowels in L2 (Arabic); and (b) assess the effect of a short training on the participants’ discrimination performance. A total of 60 participants, 20 native Arabic speakers and 40 native Hebrew speakers, were tested using the ABX procedure in two sessions that were 10 days apart. A single training session was provided for half of the Hebrew speakers (n = 20) approximately 2–3 days after the first (pretraining) testing session. The results indicated that the trained Hebrew participants’ discrimination levels (measured by accuracy and reaction times) were above chance level but were nevertheless lower in comparison to the Arabic speakers. However, a short training session was sufficient to yield a nativelike performance that generalized to untrained nonwords. These findings support the theoretical models that predict a reserved ability to acquire new phonetic/phonological cues in L2 and have important practical implications for the process of learning a new phonological system in adulthood.

Investigating Reading Experience of Dyslexic Children Through Dyslexia-Friendly Online Learning Environment

Dyslexia is one of the most common developmental disabilities; it is a disorder manifested by difficulty in learning to read despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and sociocultural opportunity. The current study focuses on the potential benefits of the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support children with dyslexia in reading. This paper addresses the need for dyslexia-friendly online text by introducing a dyslexia-friendly font for Arabic scripts called Arabolexia. An important question is asked which is ‘Is Arabolexia font an effective reading aid for children with dyslexia?' In this work, the author presents the first study that measures the impact of a dyslexia-friendly font for Arabic scripts on reading performance of native Arabic speakers. Fifty-two students aging between 8 and 26 years old were participated in this study. Descriptive and deductive statistical analysis showed that Arabolexia font has an impact on the reading accuracy of children with dyslexia.

Speech Synthesis System for the Holy Quran Recitation

This paper aims to develop a Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesis system for the holly quran recitation, to properly helps reciters and facilitates its use. In this work, the unit selection method is adopted and improved to reach a good speech quality. The proposed approach consists mainly of two steps. In the first one, an Expert System (ES) module is integrated by employing Arabic, Quran language, phonetic and phonological features. This part was considered as a preselection to optimize the synthesis algorithm's speed. The second step is the final selection of units by minimizing a concatenation cost function and a forward-backward dynamic programming search. The system is evaluated by native and non-native Arabic speakers. The results show that the goal of a correct Quran recitation by respecting its reading rules was reached, with 97 % of speech intelligibility and 72.13% of naturalness

The Implications of Coronavirus Outbreak on the Vocabularies and Language Styles of Arabic-speaking Indonesians

This study examines the implications of the Corona pandemic in the vocabulary and style of non-native Arabic speakers in Indonesia. The aim of this study is to identify new vocabulary and phrases acquired by Indonesian teachers and students. The research method used is descriptive qualitative. The results showed that there were several vocabulary words, new phrases, and some specific terms used in teacher and student writing.

INTERFERENCE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARABIC VOCABULARY (A MORPHOLOGICAL REVIEW)

Purpose: This study aims to describe the forms of Arabic language interference on terminologies in the domains of science, technology, and art. Methodology: The study was conducted morphophonologically using descriptive-analytical research methods. The descriptive-analytic research method was used to facilitate the achievement of goals specified in this study. The data findings were reviewed using the distributional method. Main Findings: The study found that language interference is an aspect of vocabulary development and enrichment, which requires harmonization of speech sounds. The results showed that in the Arabic language, interference produced partial absorption and full absorption. Phonologically, partial absorption occurred through the absorption of sound elements at the beginning or end of a word. Applications: Understanding the issue of language transfer in the development of Arabic vocabulary is useful for non- native Arabic speakers. The findings can also help Arabic teachers revise their teachings methods accordingly. Novelty/Originality of this study: This study contributed to a better understanding of the forms of phonological interference of foreign languages into the Arabic language. These forms can be represented as partial absorption, total absorption, and sound change. While in morphological forms, interference causes different developments of word patterns from classical Arabic.