Non-native Arabic Students' Perception on Virtual Communication Program with Native Speakers

Abstract

Speaking skills are one of the most challenging skills to be mastered by students of Arabic as a foreign language. Various activities were carried out by the parties involved to improve the proficiency of speaking skills among Arabic language students. At Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), an initiative was carried out to give students the opportunity to communicate with Arabic speakers from an institution of higher learning in Morocco (Muassasah Dar el Hadith). Therefore, this study was conducted to identify the perceptions of Arabic language students at UiTM on the implementation of the program. This study is a descriptive study that uses a quantitative approach through a survey questionnaire. The study sample comprises 37 students from UiTM's Professional Communication in Arabic language program. All students who participated in this program interacted orally with native speakers through the Google Meet platform. The results of the study found that students have diverse and mixed perceptions in terms of acceptance, attitude and motivation towards the program. Overall, it can be concluded that most students showed a positive perception and very good acceptance of the program. Only a small number of students had negative perceptions and stated that the program was quite burdensome and had disrupted their learning process.