The Importance of Immediate Learning Context: An Investigation on the Arabic as a Foreign Language Classroom

The importance of the immediate learning context (ILC) on language learning motivation (LLM) has been asserted by different theorists and researchers and incorporated in a number of LLM models. The teaching materials, amount of variety in classroom work, the nature of the classroom organization, and the nature of the teacher-student relationship can all influence motivation. The aim of this study is to investigate the different motivational variables in the immediate learning context among the non-Muslim Malaysian learners of Arabic (NMMLAs). The focus variables of the immediate learning context in this study are teacher's personality and teacher's method of teaching. The study adopts a mix method approach where a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed to obtain the data. The questionnaires were distributed to 207 respondents who are non-Muslim Malaysians learning Arabic as a compulsory subject at the Faculty of Law in UKM. In order to gain more insights, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 respondents. The findings reveal that teacher's personality seems to play the most important role in shaping the culture of learning Arabic as a foreign language. The teacher's style and method of teaching is another important component in language instruction that motivated the Arabic language learners in their classroom.