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Examining teachers' efficacy, commitment and language competency in teaching arabic among AFL teachers in secondary schools
International Islamic University Malaysia
Kulliyyah of Education, International Islamic University Malaysia
Teacher efficacy researches have been widely examined by many researchers in various context and subject areas. Yet, in the field of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL), the investigation into teachers' efficacy and its relation to their language competency and commitment is extremely uncommon. Therefore, the current study explores the level of teacher efficacy, teacher language competency and teacher commitment, as well as the validity and reliability of the instrument used in assessing teachers' efficacy in teaching Arabic, their Arabic language competency and also their commitment in teaching. The study also examined Arabic teaching efficacy in relation to the teacher language competency and teacher commitment. A quantitative research design was employed in this study. The current study applied a stratified random sampling because of the geographical reason and involved 252 teachers out of 487 teachers from 57 National Religious Secondary Schools throughout Malaysia. The instruments used were adapted from a few resources with some modification to suit the Arabic teaching context in Malaysia. The means and percentages were used to interpret the level of teacher efficacy, teacher language competency and teacher commitment. A structural equation modeling with AMOS (Analysis of Moment Structures) software was employed to investigate the direct and indirect effects of hypotheses model. The descriptive analysis showed that teachers evaluated themselves at the high level on those three constructs. A confirmatory factor analysis, on the other hand, supported the adequacy of the constructs of teacher efficacy, teacher language competency and teacher commitment and found that the three constructs were multidimensional constructs with four underlying dimensions respectively. The dimension of teacher efficacy consists of efficacy for language use, efficacy for classroom management, efficacy for teaching strategies and efficacy for student engagement. The dimension of teacher language competence comprises four language skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing skill. Whereas teacher commitment construct involves commitment to profession, commitment to teaching field, commitment to student and commitment to school. The findings also showed that teacher efficacy directly influence teacher language competency and, teacher language competency directly influence teacher commitment. Teacher language competency was also found to be a mediator in relationship between teacher efficacy and teacher commitment. Several essential theoretical, practical and methodological implication for developing and enhancing teachers in the Malaysian secondary Arabic education context have arisen from the current study.
Thesis (Ph.D)--International Islamic University Malaysia, 2016.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-177).