Designing Digital Arabic Worksheets for Vocabulary Practice: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

Vocabulary mastery is a fundamental component of learning Arabic as a foreign language, particularly at the primary education level. This study aims to describe the design and implementation of Digital Arabic Worksheets for Arabic vocabulary practice and to examine their verbal and visual representations through the lens of Dual Coding Theory. Employing a qualitative descriptive approach, the study was conducted at Muhammadiyah 1 Wringinanom Elementary School, Gresik. Data were collected through non-participant classroom observations, semi-structured interviews with an Arabic language teacher, and documentation of Digital Arabic Worksheets designed using the Canva platform. Data were analyzed through data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing, with the worksheets coded deductively according to their instructional functions, task formats, verbal representations, visual representations, and integration of verbal and visual elements. The findings reveal that the Digital Arabic Worksheets comprised ten types: Hijaiyah letter introduction, Hijaiyah letter rewriting, word construction, letter–word matching, Arabic vocabulary reading, gap filling, Hijaiyah letter games, transliteration, Arabic numeracy, and vocabulary coloring. These worksheets integrated Arabic vocabulary with meaningful visual representations through varied task formats, while their implementation showed that students demonstrated active engagement and meaningful responses during classroom activities. From a theoretical perspective, the findings demonstrate how verbal–visual integration can be examined through Dual Coding Theory in the design of Arabic vocabulary worksheets. The study contributes a ten-type classification of Digital Arabic Worksheets and identifies verbal–visual integration as a central design principle for developing cognitively informed digital materials for primary-level Arabic vocabulary practice.