DESIGN AND DISCOURSE OF MODERN STANDARD ARABIC 
                       E-TEXTBOOK 
             Muhammad Thohir, Mohammad Kurjum, dan Abdul Muhid
                  UIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, Surabaya
                  e-mail: muhammadthohir@uinsby.ac.id
        Abstract
         An E-textbook of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is an important device that supports 
        the on-line practical aspects of the teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL). The 
        present study was aimed at describing the characteristics of the design and discourse of the 
        Schulz’s E-textbooks of MSA. The study focused on Schulz MSA E-Textbook as an 
        instructional material package of standard Arabic of the intermediate levels (B1 and B2 
        levels). The study used the qualitative research approach with the discourse-analysis method 
        of data analyses.The results showed the following findings. The design of the E-package is 
        web-based with multimedia as resources.  The content prioritizes on grammar material in 
        each initial lesson unit of the textbook. Although standard modern Arabic is used as the 
        language variant for the language skills, colloquial language variants are given sufficient 
        attention that can be accessed only in the E-edition version of the package. In terms of the 
        contents of the discourse, a wide selection of texts are used with varied themes in the field 
        of education, social affairs, economy, culture, politics, religion, environment, and 
        technology. Citations embedded in header texts do not always match the contents of the 
        discourse. The religious discourse pieces in the materials seem to be positioned more as 
        socio-cultural facts rather than as theological facts.
        Keywords: E-textbook, Modern Standard Arabic, discourse,  learning material
          DESAIN DAN WACANA BUKU PELAJARAN BAHASA ARAB BAKU
        Abstrak
         Buku ajar elektronik bahasa Arab standar merupakan perangkat penting yang 
        mendukung aspek-aspek praktis online pada pembelajaran bahasa Arab sebagai bahasa 
        asing (PBABA). Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menggambarkan karakteristik desain dan 
        muatan wacana buku ajar elektronik bahasa Arab Standar. Kajian  difokuskan pada e-text 
        karya Eckehard Schulz yang banyak digunakan di Indonesia dan dibatasi pada tingkat 
        menengah (tingkat B1-B2). Penelitian menggunakan pendekatan penelitian deskriptif 
        kualitatif dengan analisis wacana. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan temuan berikut. Desain 
        e-textbook  MSA Schulz berkarakter web based dengan multimedia sebagai resources. 
        Kontennya memprioritaskan materi tata bahasa di setiap awal pelajaran. Meskipun 
        keterampilan berbahasa Arab ditekankan pada penggunaan variasi standar atau modern 
                          1
                  language,  variasi colloquial language mendapat perhatian cukup memadai yang hanya 
                  dapat diakses dalam versi e-edition. Dari segi muatan wacana, ia menghadirkan banyak 
                  muatan seperti pendidikan, sosial, ekonomi, budaya, politik, agama, lingkungan, dan 
                  teknologi. Kutipan yang disematkan di setiap header halaman tidak selalu cocok dengan 
                  isi wacana. Yang menarik, wacana agama di dalamnya terlihat lebih diposisikan sebagai 
                  fakta sosial-budaya daripada fakta teologis. 
                  Kata kunci: buku elektronik, bahasa Arab standar, wacana, kegiatan pembelajaran
                  INTRODUCTION                                     In Indonesia, this program has been 
                     Arabic is learned in three variants:       established since 2016 by the Islamic 
                  classical written Arabic (CWA), modern        State University (ISU) of Sunan Ampel 
                  standard Arabic (MSA), and spoken             as a language-learning project under the 
                  Arabic (SA). CWA is one that is used in       direct license of the Schulz program. 
                  the al-Quran and literature.  MSA,            Participants are 5,000 candidates of 
                  acknowledged as standard variety often        scholarship recipients who will pursue 
                  called fușhā, is that which consists of the   continuing education in various 
                  introduction of vocabulary in formal          universities in the Middle-East countries. 
                  contexts (Abdelali, 2004: 23). MSA is         In the learning activities, participants are 
                  used by 22 country members of                 given access, by way of their own 
                  UNESCO, 422 million Arabs, and 1.5            accounts, to on-line and classical face-to-
                  billion Islamic followers in the world. In    face instructional programs. Participants 
                  this state, the learning of Arabic as a       are given language-competence 
                  foreign language (LAFL) has spread to a       certificates, in accordance with their 
                  wide area in the world.                       competence levels, directly by Leipziq 
                     In coherence with the strategic issues     University after taking the on-line test. 
                  of the 4.0 industrial revolution, LAFL has       The present study that looks into the 
                  developed in various programs and             strategic issues on the MSA electronic 
                  designs, formally and informally alike.       learning materials is based on the premise 
                  Arabic has existed not only as a              that instructional packages are not only  
                  representation of the Arabic socio-cultural   concerned with the strategies of teaching, 
                  life, but also as part of the cyber-based     but also with topics and ideas  (Behnke, 
                  dynamics of informational technology.         2018). Instructional materials have even 
                  One example is shown by the MSA               been regarded as a determining mediator 
                  program designed on-line by Eckehard          for instructional processes (Schuh, 
                  Schulz, a professor in Arabic of the          Russell, & Horne, 2018). The studies by 
                  Leipziq University of Germany. This           Pepin, Gueudet, & Trouche (2013) have 
                  program is aimed at developing Arabic         emphasized that the interfaces of 
                  skills and competences internationally.       electronic instructional packages become 
                  2        LITERA, Volume 19, Nomor 1, Maret 2020
                    a crucial element, including even the               (2019) study how the association rule 
                    presentation of the instructional material.         model extracts unique phrases from an 
                        Richards (2015: 92) mentions five               MSA text. 
                    principles of decent foreign-language                   In a study specifically related to a 
                    teaching designs, namely: objectives,               Schulz MSA learning program, Jaeni 
                    syllabus, structural format, and exercises.         (2015) finds that his instructional book 
                    Here, the instructional objectives are              contains adequate ideologies and cultures 
                    placed in the front for the reasons that            of Arabic since it provides an appropriate 
                    objectives will have impacts on the other           portion of Islamic religious teachings by 
                    components. Instructional objectives will           citing Quran and Hadist verses in each 
                    show the nature of the language                     page. In terms of language skill contents, 
                    competences to be achieved. A language              the study by Taufikurrahman (2015) finds 
                    competency is understood by Fairclough              that the Schulz package has contained 
                    (2003:82) as the ability to perform the             the four language skills in a brief time 
                    knowledge and skills in a new situation;            and with recent topics and materials. 
                    thus requiring the technological  This finding is strengthened by Ediyani’s 
                    orientation of the discourse which is               study (2016) stating that the package 
                    different from the traditional language.            makes good Arabic learning although it 
                        Research on MSA has been conducted              lacks pictures in the book. In the same 
                    by Diab, Hacioglu, & Jurafsky (2007:                way, Masyhud (2017), who emphasizes 
                    177). They tried to adapt the support               more on the presentation of dialects, 
                    vector machine (SVM) of an English text             states that the Shulz MSA material is 
                    into an MSA text, specifically in solving           effective in improving pronunciation.  
                    the problems of clitical tokenization on                The foregoing discussion shows how 
                    the morphological level. While this study           there remain many possibilities in the 
                    is based on texts, the one by Droua-                Schluz MSA materials that have not 
                    Hamdani, et.al., (2012) is based on sounds.         received attention from researchers. A 
                    By using automatic speech recognition               discourse analysis on an instructional 
                    (ASR) for MSA speakers, they found that             material has not certainly given a complete 
                    the ASR remains influenced by the local             picture if the discussion is mainly based on 
                    accents of the speakers. Internet-based             whether or not the materials are adequate 
                    research, such as one conducted by                  as revealed by Jeni. As comparison, 
                    Nassiri, Lakhouaja, & Cavalli-Sforza                Purwanta (2013: 439) finds how historical 
                    (2018), measures readability of MSA texts           texts show imbalance in that they are Java-
                    using the Tashkeela application while               centric with the consequence of lacks of 
                    another by Aljasser & Vitevitch (2018)              non-native aspects. If Faruqi (2007) and 
                    describes the development of web-based              Roibin (2010: 7) regard those religious texts 
                    interfaces to calculate the phonotactic             do not necessarily represent the religion as 
                    probability in MSA. Meanwhile, Loukam,              a discourse, then Jeni’s study still leaves 
                    Hammouche, Mezzoudj, & Belkredim                    questions of how Schulz MSA instructional 
                                                 Design and Discourse of Modern Standard Arabic E-Textbook           3
                  materials present discourses as important      Indonesian-Arabic edition was printed in 
                  materials of  LAFL. The study by Pransiska     Leipziq in 2016, translated by a team 
                  (2018) about the MSA book in terms of          from Maliki ISU of Malang consisting of 
                  design, construction, and implementation       Bahkruddin Fannani, Uril Bahruddin, 
                  has not answered the questions either.         Miftahul Huda, Zakiyah Arifa, Dewi 
                      It is by those reasons that the present    Chamida, Ghufron Hanbali, and Makhi 
                  study is aimed more at giving a description    Ulil Kirom. The MSA Schulz E-textbook 
                  of the nature Schulsz MSA elektronic           was designed for learners to obtain a 
                  instructional package: how to present          competence certificate basedf on the 
                  various language instructional materials       Common European Framework of 
                  of standard Arabic. The study is arranged      Reference for Languages (CEFR), and 
                  in two foci of discussion: what is the         not the American Council of Teaching 
                  design of the electronic book like and         Foreign Languages (ACTFL). 
                  how texts are presented in the book.               This research material was accessible 
                                                                 on https://modern-standard-arabic.net/. 
                  METHOD                                         Data were collected from the E-textbook, 
                      The present study was descriptive          both text based and graphical user-based, 
                  qualitative research. The research subject     by way of reading and note-taking. 
                  was the  MSA E-textbook Schulz (2017),         Reading was done carefully and 
                  professor of Arabic at Lepziq University of    accurately; while note taking was done 
                  Germany. Narration of the book was             by writing down the data description, 
                  presented in seven language (multilingual);    copying selected materials, making 
                  however, only the Indonesian-Arabic            conclusions, and transcribing the 
                  version was used in this study. The research   materials using the determined categories. 
                  material was MSA Schulz E-textbook of          As a qualitative study, the primary 
                  the B level (intermediate), consisting of      instrument was the researcher who had a 
                  the two editions (B1 and B2). The              registered account in the MSA site. Data 
                  electronic edition (E-edition) was chosen      were analyzed using descriptive-
                  for the reason that, though the contents       qualitative analyses, descriptive statistics, 
                  were the same, E-edition was considered        and discourse analyses.
                  as more complete. In addition, in the 
                  E-editon, lessons 1 through 24 were            FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
                  presented in one menu selection while, in      Findings
                  the interactive edition, these were            Design
                  presented in two books:   lessons 1 to 12 in       The Schulz MSA E-textbook  can be 
                  Book 1 and lessons 13 to 24 in Book 2.         described in three main frames: format, 
                      The original version of the MSA            resourses,  and contents and visual 
                  E-textbook published in Germany was            graphics. In the case of the format, the 
                  titled  Modernes Hocharabisch Mit Einer        book consists of two forms: manual (paper 
                  Einführung In Hauptdialekte, Hamouda           textbook) and E-edition (E-textbook). For 
                  Edition, Leipziq: Germany. The  the E-edition, the material is accessible by 
                  4        LITERA, Volume 19, Nomor 1, Maret 2020