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Enhancing Arabic Morphology Learning via Jigsaw: An Experimental Study in a Islamic Boarding School

Summary

The paper looks at how to teach Sharaf (Arabic morphology) in an Indonesian Pesantren. Instruction there usually relies on memorization and teacher-centred methods such as sorogan, and students often stay passive and forget patterns. The author tested the Jigsaw Method with 60 students aged 13–15 at Madrasah Tsanawiyyah Darullughah Wadda'wah. In Jigsaw, each learner masters one piece of the material and then teaches it to peers.

The Methods section describes a mixed design: a quasi-experiment with pre/post tests (experimental vs. control group, t-tests in SPSS), plus observations, interviews, FGDs and documents coded in NVivo. The abstract, however, calls the study qualitative. The available text gives no test statistics. Its reported outcomes are qualitative: more engagement, motivation, confidence and less anxiety, and better recognition of roots and patterns (wazn/mawzun). Vocabulary retention and the need for carefully structured materials remain problems.

The study matters as one of the few attempts to apply cooperative learning to morphology rather than to general skills or translation.

Key points

  • Participants were 60 students aged 13–15. The informants were 4 Arabic teachers and 30 purposively chosen students drawn from both groups.
  • The control group kept conventional teaching (sorogan, direct translation), and both groups took identical tests. Paired and independent-sample t-tests were planned, but no numeric results appear in the provided text.
  • The qualitative data came from observations, semi-structured interviews, FGDs of 6–8 students, worksheets and lesson plans. The thematic coding addressed how students interacted with one another, the strategies they used to understand the material, how well they kept vocabulary in memory, and the benefits they believed they gained.
  • The paper is internally inconsistent. It describes itself as both qualitative and mixed-methods, and it names the school level as both Tsanawiyyah and Ibtidaiyyah.
  • It cites prior Jigsaw work on Maharah Qiro'ah (Mahmudah & Hanifansyah, 2024), which reported 93.5% engagement and 82.2% comprehension.

Interesting ideas

  • I1. Split a complex topic into balanced pieces, train an "expert" on each piece, then have the experts reassemble the whole; the paper warns that uneven pieces undermine the scheme. — For Mova (learn): Silver-data production could give each witness parser or LLM teacher tier a narrow slice of phenomena, with a check that the slices together cover the construction inventory evenly.
  • I2. Having learners explain a rule to someone else exposes and strengthens their understanding better than silent recall. — For Mova (answer): Each answering reader could be required to emit an explanation that a second module re-derives the answer from, and any mismatch would be flagged as a comprehension gap.
  • I3. The morphology is taught as recognizing a root inside a pattern template (wazn/mawzun), not as memorizing word lists. — For Mova (tokens): The en crate's morphology could analyze derived words as stem plus an explicit affix template, so every lemma decision can be traced to a named pattern.
  • I4. The design pairs a pre/post test against a control group with thematic coding of why outcomes changed, so numbers and causes check each other. — For Mova (learn): Evaluations could pair score deltas against a negative-control baseline with a coded categorization of the errors that disappeared or appeared.
  • I5. A cautionary design lesson: the paper claims statistical testing but reports none, and its own labels conflict. — For Mova (learn): Evaluation reports should be generated automatically from the run artifacts, so the claimed method and the reported numbers cannot drift apart.

Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.

Fields: Linguistics & languages

Cite

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. DOI 10.23971/jallt.v3i2.366

@article{habib2025enhancing,
  title = {{Enhancing Arabic Morphology Learning via Jigsaw: An Experimental Study in a Islamic Boarding School}},
  author = {Habib, Moh. Tohiri},
  journal = {Journal of Arabic Language Learning and Teaching 3},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.23971/jallt.v3i2.366},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.23971/jallt.v3i2.366}
}

References

18 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

  1. Al Ghozali, M. D. H. & Mustamim. (2023). Model Pembelajaran Bahasa Arab Basis Kooperatif Jigsaw Pada Mahasiswa Pendidikan Agama Islam. Ukazh: Journal of Arabic Studies, 4(2), 550–559. https://doi.org/10.37274/ukazh.v4i2.860 ↗
  2. Aliyah, A. (2018). Pesantren Tradisional Sebagai Basis Pembelajaran Nahwu Dan Sharaf Dengan Menggunakan Kitab Kuning. Al-Ta’rib : Jurnal Ilmiah Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Arab IAIN Palangka Raya, 6(1), Article 1. https://doi.org/10.23971/altarib.v6i1.966 ↗
  3. Asbarin, A., Amalia, N. N., & Mukhlishoh, M. (2024). Evaluating the Regular Sharaf Learning Program at the Foundation of Islamic and Arabic Language Learning In Indonesia. Journal of Arabic Language Learning and Teaching (JALLT), 2(2), 101–110. https://doi.org/10.23971/jallt.v2i2.181 ↗
  4. Chng, H. T., Ng, H. Y., Teo, Z., Liew, S. D., & Gan, M. J. S. (2024). Evaluation of jigsaw collaborative learning strategy on students’ learning of clinical pharmacokinetics of special populations. Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning, 16(11), 102162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cptl.2024.102162 ↗
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  6. F. (2020). Improving Quality of Arabic Translation Course through Jigsaw Cooperative Learning. Izdihar : Journal of Arabic Language Teaching, Linguistics, and Literature, 3(1), 17–30. https://doi.org/10.22219/jiz.v3i1.11033 ↗
  7. Hanifansyah, N., & Mahmudah, M. (2024). Enhancing Arabic Vocabulary Mastery Through Communicative Strategies: Evidence from Malaysia. Al-Ta’rib : Jurnal Ilmiah Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Arab IAIN, 12((2)), 263–278. https://doi.org/10.23971/altarib.v12i2.9082 ↗
  8. Hasibuan, R., & Fitriani, L. (2023). Innovative Approach to Reading Skill Development: Jigsaw Strategy and Crossword Puzzle Media. Journal of Arabic Language Learning and Teaching (JALLT), 1(2), 61–74. https://doi.org/10.23971/jallt.v1i2.98 ↗
  9. Khadem, A. M., Khoshkholgh, R., sani, F. V., & Dolatabadi, Z. (2022). Using the Jigsaw (Puzzle) Method in Academic Environments: Benefits and Challenges. Medical Education Bulletin. Medical Education Bulletin, 3(2), 465–473. https://doi.org/10.22034/meb.2022.333390.1053 ↗
  10. Mahmudah, M., & Hanifansyah, N. (2024). Implementation of the Jigsaw Learning Method for Maharah Qiro’ah Learning at MA As-Sholach, Kejeran Boyeman, Gondangwetan, Pasuruan. Lughawiyah: Journal of Arabic Education and Linguistics, Universitas Islam Negeri Mahmud Yunus Batusangkar, Indonesia, Vol 6(No 2), 165–184. http://dx.doi.org/10.31958/lughawiyah.v6i2.13456 ↗
  11. Mahmudah, M., Nurhanifansyah, N., & Khalid, S. M. S. bin. (2024). Psycholinguistic Approaches to Enhancing Arabic Speaking Proficiency through Comic Strips. Arabiyatuna: Jurnal Bahasa Arab, 8(2), 804–826. https://doi.org/10.29240/jba.v8i2.11349 ↗
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  16. Riant, M., De Place, A.-L., Bressoux, P., Batruch, A., Bouet, M., Bressan, M., Brown, G., Butera, F., Cepeda, C., Cherbonnier, A., Darnon, C., Demolliens, M., Desrichard, O., Ducros, T., Goron, L., Hémon, B., Huguet, P., Jamet, E., Martinez, R., … Pansu, P. (2024). Does the Jigsaw method improve motivation and self-regulation in vocational high schools? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 77, 102278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2024.102278 ↗
  17. Rosyadi, F. I. (2020). ’Anāshir Su’ūbāt Ta’allum Al-Nahw wa Al-Sharf: Dirāsah Tahlīlīyah bima’had Al-Īmān Al-Islāmiy Mantilan Jawa Al-Wustha. Al-Ta’rib : Jurnal Ilmiah Program Studi Pendidikan Bahasa Arab IAIN Palangka Raya, 8(1), 49–64. https://doi.org/10.23971/altarib.v8i1.1860 ↗
  18. Wu, T.-T., Sari, N. A. R. M., & Huang, Y.-M. (2023). Flipped jigsaw II versus conventional flipped classroom: Which approach better improves learning outcomes in the International Marketing Management course? The International Journal of Management Education, 21(3), 100855. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijme.2023.100855 ↗

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