Effectiveness of a proposed contextual lexicon model in acquiring legal terminology among non-native Arabic language learners

Abstract

Teaching any language as a mother tongue is different from teaching it as a foreign or second language. Hence came the research problem, which is to measure the effectiveness of a proposed contextual dictionary in acquiring legal terminology for non-native Arabic learners for religious purposes, with the aim of providing the necessary legal terminology for non-native Arabic learners for religious purposes, and evaluating and assessing its effectiveness in light of scientific standards in order to develop lexical and semantic skills through the use of the communicative approach in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers. The researcher adopted the experimental method, the most suitable approach for achieving the objectives of this research. He concluded that the contextual dictionary is effective in helping non-native speakers, particularly those learning Arabic for religious purposes, acquire the Arabic language. He also compiled a list of essential Islamic legal terms, encompassing four main themes, from which twenty-seven primary legal terms emerged, further subdivided into five hundred and twenty contextual legal terms. These themes are: Islamic acts of worship, commercial transactions, religious holidays and occasions, and the Holy Quran. The researcher concluded that using the dictionary in teaching Islamic legal terms resulted in statistically significant differences in the acquisition of these terms among learners of Arabic for religious purposes