Attitude towards Learning Oral Arabic as a Foreign Language among Malaysian Students

The Arabic course in UiTM is an elective course offered to undergraduate students. Students’ attitude towards language learning has been identified to influence the learning process. This study was aimed to determine (1) students’ attitude level in learning oral Arabic at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Malaysia, and (2) the differences in attitude level among students with different prior experience and gender. It was a mixed method of quantitative and qualitative study using questionnaire and interviews. The questionnaire was adapted from Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) involving 445 subjects who had been selected using stratified random sampling technique. As for qualitative data, 13 interviews were conducted. This study found that (1) the attitude level among UiTM students was high. It was also discovered that the cognitive and affective components were high while conative was moderate. (2) There were statistically significant differences in the attitude level among the students with different prior experience and gender. In specific, more experienced learners and female learners were found to have higher positive attitude as compared to their counterparts. It was thus recommended that the teaching approach used should be appropriate to students’ prior experience and gender. Appropriate approach is therefore vital in moulding students’ behaviour, as this will consequently affect their performance in learning spoken Arabic. The uses of collaborative learning strategies as well as portfolio and e-portfolio assessments are suggested based on the individuals’ performance.