ENHANCING ARABIC LANGUAGE LEARNING IN THE 21ST CENTURY: UNDERSTANDING GENERATION Y’S NEED IN MALAYSIAN CONTEXT

Abstract

For digital natives, there are numerous platforms for them to refresh their knowledge. One of such platform is the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) which offer learning opportunities for learners all over the world. Over the years, public and private Malaysian universities have gradually used MOOCs, particularly to facilitate off-campus open learning. This has opened up more learning opportunities as MOOC is a flexible platform which enables learners and teachers to collaborate as an online teaching community. Based on this importance, this paper examines the need for digital language learning among the young generation and focused on the elements required in designing an MOOC platform for learning Arabic language for tourism purposes. This study involved 61 students from University Malaysia Kelantan (UMK) and Kolej Poly-Tech MARA Kota Bharu branch (KPTMKB). All of these students are majoring in Tourism. The data were collected through survey questionnaires and the data were analyzed using IBM SPSS statistical software. This paper focuses on the needs analysis of Arabic learners and it is hoped that the findings of this research paper will present an effective way to develop an MOOC platform for learning Arabic language for tourism.