Boarding schools are Islamic educational institutions that have been proven and still survive with all of the dynamics until today. A characteristic that distinguishes boarding schools from others is the 24-hour educational system that supports character building. Additionally, the curriculum is developed to meet the needs, so it makes the boarding school more unique. This research aimed at describing the characteristics of Islamic Religious Education (PAI) courses in the boarding school curriculum. The research approach used was descriptive qualitative. The research location was Tahfidzul Qur’an Boarding School of Ahlus Shuffah Balikpapan. The primary data sources of this research were the management/ leader, educational division, asatidz (teachers) and student representatives. The data collection was through observation, interviews, and documentation. The data analysis techniques used data reduction, data display and verification. The results showed that PAI course at Tahfidzul Qur’an boarding school of Ahlus Shuffah Balikpapan was through maximizing the education in the classroom, in the mosque, in the dormitory, as well as in the real-life interaction. The boarding school does not only teach PAI knowledge or materials contained in the boarding school curriculum and in the co-curriculum, but also general knowledge and skills as a provision to take the equivalence examination at the Wustha (junior high) level or Ulya (senior high) level in order to get a diploma equivalent to MTs/SLTP or MA/SLTA at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. This research is expected to broaden the societies’ view that education at boarding school is highly appropriate, complete and provides a diploma that is legalized by the government.

<p>This article examines the concept of character education in Surah Qaf using a thematic interpretation approach. Four commentaries, namely Ibn Kathir, al-Misbah, al-Azhar, and al-Munir, are utilized as data sources. The analysis conducted is content analysis. The findings of this interpretive study indicate that human character is divided into two categories: good (muttaqin) and bad (ghaflah), as mentioned in Surah Qaf. The surah contains 30 verses that illustrate various values of character education, including religious character, independence, and integrity. The process of instilling character is revealed through verses of supervision, guidance, evaluation, <em>punishment </em>, and <em>reward.</em></p>

The purpose of this article is to find out how influential the dhuha prayer and istigasah prayer activities are in developing the religious character of students at MTs Daruttaqwa Gresik. In this study, researchers used descriptive quantitative methods. Data collection techniques used are interviews, questionnaires/questionnaires, and documentation. The conclusion of this research is that the effect of dhuha prayer and istigasah activities on the religious character of students can be seen through multiple regression tests with the results of R count > R table, it can be concluded that the duha prayer and istigasah activities have an influence on the religious character of students at MTs The Noor Pacet Mojokerto.

The purposes of this research were to find out the students’ difficulties in developing a paragraph and to understand the students’ difficulties in implementing the writing elements in writing their undergraduate thesis proposals. This research used the descriptive qualitative method. The instrument used in this research were interviews, documentation, and Oshima & Hogue’s Paragraph Rubric. The research subject was 7 eighth-semester students of UINSI Samarinda. The data were collected from the background of the study of the student’s undergraduate thesis proposals and analyzed with the Miles and Huberman Model. The result showed that the difficulties in developing a paragraph experienced by the students were related to too specific and too general topic sentences, poor supporting sentences, the absence of concluding sentences, inconsistent topic discussion, and inharmonic sentences. At the same time, the students’ difficulties shown in implementing the writing elements were found in the organization (the failure to run the sentences smoothly), vocabulary (informal phrases, redundancy, unclear word), grammar (singular and plural error, wrong word choice errors, missing word error, article error, subject-verb agreement error, fragment error, conjunction error, wrong word form error, wrong word order error, and preposition error), and mechanics (capitalization error, punctuation error, and spelling error). The causes of these problems were the interference of students’ native language and the lack of knowledge about the rules of the development of paragraph and writing elements.

<em>Social media is a product of information and communication technology that is used by many people around the world, ranging from children to adults. Although not created specifically for educational purposes, social media has drawn the attention of some educators, especially in the field of teaching and learning English. The objectives of this research were to find out the types of social media used by English department students in the fourth semester of UINSI Samarinda and the use of social media in learning English writing. This research was conducted by using a descriptive-qualitative design. The researcher used questionnaires, interviews, and documentation as instruments to collect the data. The primary data in this research was obtained from questionnaires and interviews with the students who were active in using social media in learning English writing. Then, the secondary data contained recordings and documentation obtained from the students as the subjects of this research. The data analysis techniques used were data condensation, data display, conclusion drawing, and verification. To test the validity of the data, the researcher used the credibility technique with the source triangulation method. The result of this research showed that there were seven types of social media used by the students in learning English writing, namely social networking sites (SNS), blogs, micro-blog, wiki, social bookmarking websites, media sharing sites, and RSS (Really Simple Syndication). The students mostly used social media in learning English writing by using some provided features, especially which allow them to interact with their peers, such as personal chat, group chat, comment section, caption, description, story, and bio. Additionally, they also used some of these social media as learning sources to help them in developing their English writing skill.</em>