This article explores the motivation and engagement of adolescent non-Arab Muslim learners of Arabic (a-MLA) enrolled at Australian Islamic Schools (AIS). To this end, the ‘L2 Motivational Self System’ was used as a theoretical lens. This research gives ‘voice’ to learners and is dialogic, ‘speaking with’ rather than ‘speaking for’ learners in Islamic schools. It also responds to calls for the ‘renewal’ of Islamic Schools in the Western context, including in Australia, through a focus on Arabic learning. A basic interpretive qualitative approach was used, and data were collected from 40 participants using semi-structured interviews. The interviews were supplemented by classroom observations. In keeping with the emphasis placed on learners’ voices, the data presented focus on the students’ own words and perspectives. The findings suggest the presence of predominantly religious orientations to learning Arabic, but that a subset of other orientations also exists. The findings also indicate that several contextual factors can lead to disengagement and that the L2 Motivational Self System might not fully explain the situation of these learners. Nonetheless, these findings can inform the practice of teachers engaged with a-MLA and provide grounds for further research.

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Motivated by the need to preserve Arabic learning and teaching, this article acknowledges the importance of considering the various contexts in which Arabic is taught and learnt and its specific status therein. In this regard, the Australian context is underrepresented in the literature on Arabic language learning. This article will, therefore, shed some light on the specifics of the Australian context, in which Arabic is a language of wider teaching that struggles to attract sufficient numbers of learners in the senior years of school, thereby often calling into question the viability of university-level programs. With the viability of Arabic tertiary programs in Australia on the line, reversing such trends is a necessity. However, research on Arabic in the Australian context has also been very limited. Therefore, this article will explore five language-specific issues that might underpin problematic participation in the learning of Arabic.

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Motivated by the need to rethink Islamic education and Arabic teaching in Western Islamic schools (Ramadan 2004), this article seeks to present an analytical exploration of Islamic educational thought on the purpose of Arabic grammar and its place in Arabic language teaching. The article will review the rise of Arabic grammar and thought surrounding its instruction to understand whether one of the most prevalent approaches to teaching Muslim children Arabic as a foreign or second language today, the Grammar-Translation Method (GTM), is part of the Islamic educational tradition. The GTM, which is not suited to the promotion of childhood literacy or language acquisition and leaves many children disengaged and with stilted rudimentary literacy, is often conflated with the rich philological tradition of the Islamic civilization. However, was nahw [grammar] meant to be the core component of Muslim childhood learning experiences in the way that it is today, or has the GTM method supplanted Islamic civilizational thought on teaching language? This article seeks to answer this question and will do so by reviewing the purpose of the Arabic language in the Islamic civilization, the rise of Arabic grammar and thought surrounding education and Arabic instruction.