How do excellent students interact with Arabic poems?

Interaction with Arabic literature requires special effort and knowledge. Arabic poetry in particular is often viewed as difficult to understand. To address this, a qualitative study was conducted on students who excelled to identify strategies used to understand Arabic poems. For this purpose, three Malay students majoring in Arabic language in Malaysian public universities were chosen as respondents. The data obtained through the interview method were then analysed based on six main reading strategies; namely memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective and social. The results showed that all six strategies were used. Information related to life rather than linguistics were used when applying memory strategies, and cognitive strategies were used at the word, sentence and context levels. Compensation strategies were used most often, and many intelligent guesses were made based on the information in the text. From the aspect of metacognitive and effective strategies students were found to heavily relate to Islamic elements such as reciting bismillah; they have strong determination and prepare by reading more poetry. As for social strategies, their trust in their teacher as a source of reference is evident. These findings will contribute towards assisting students and teachers in the effort to understand Arabic poetry.

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