Orientations among Japanese University Students Learning Arabic (<Special Feature> Teaching and Learning Arabic)

Abstract

Although there are a large number of students learning Arabic in many Japanese universities, their characteristics are not sufficiently understood.“Orientation”is one characteristic that refers to a reason for language learning. Orientation has received substantial attention in the language learning literature; nevertheless, few attempts have been made to examine orientations for Japanese learners of Arabic. The purpose of this study was to examine their orientation by analysis of the data obtained from a questionnaire survey. The participants were 261 Arabic major and 235 non-Arabic major students. The questionnaire comprised 21 orientation items and 16 items for Arabic learning outcomes: learning motivation, learning satisfaction, subjective achievement, goal of acquisition, and learning anxiety. These items were all rated on a 7-point scale. A factor analysis of the orientation items revealed that the same five factors were extracted from the 15 items for both Arabic major and non-Arabic major students. These factors were integrative, instrumental, travel, friendships, and knowledge orientations, which have also been identified in previous studies. Arabic major students showed lower integrative orientation and higher instrumental orientation than non-Arabic major students. Simple correlations for students in both majors indicated that, in general, while most of the orientations were positively related to learning motivation, learning satisfaction, and goal of acquisition, they were weakly related to subjective achievement and learning anxiety. The results of a regression analysis showed that the orientations had slightly different relationships with different Arabic learning outcomes for students in both majors. The current findings suggest that some unique orientations characteristics for Arabic learners in a Japanese university. The implications of the common characteristics of orientations among students in both majors, as well as the role of the orientations in the Japanese university context are discussed.