"Children and Foreign Language Learning through Reading the Holy Qur’an"
Mengaji, or reading the Holy Qur’an, is widely known as a religious practice. However, for children, learning to read the Qur’an is also part of their journey in learning a foreign language. This process begins with understanding different letters known as Hijaiyyah letters as consonants and harakat (syakl) as vowels, which are completely different in shape and structure from their mother tongue.
Basically, some Hijaiyyah sounds have similarities to Indonesian letters. However, Qur’anic students soon realize that the Qur’an has specific linguistic principles called Tajweed. Although this knowledge makes pronunciation more complex, it also makes reading the Qur’an more beautiful and meaningful.
For Indonesian learners, our writing system does not involve many additional symbols combined with alphabetic letters. Our vowel sounds are written using the same alphabetic system, similar to English, which uses A, I, U, E, and O along with consonants. This difference makes Arabic visually and conceptually challenging for beginners.
When children study the Qur’an, the first stage they must master is memorizing the Hijaiyyah alphabet, such as أ، ب، ج, followed by harakat placed above or below the letters. At the beginner level, they are required to recognize at least three basic vowels: fathah (َ), kasrah (ِ), and dhammah (ُ).
Today, I realized the complexity of learning a foreign language for children. I witnessed firsthand how confused they were when trying to distinguish Hijaiyyah letters from one another. What adults perceive as simple can be extremely difficult for them. I saw them pause silently, trying to search for information in their minds, yet often ending with uncertainty.
This experience caused me to rethink the easiest and most effective methods for teaching a second language to children. It has strengthened my interest in studying second language acquisition more deeply, both as a learner who struggles to acquire foreign languages and as a future teacher. I believe that every language in the world shares fundamental principles that, if understood properly, can make learning more accessible.
This realization gives me additional motivation to turn this experience into a problem I hope to solve in the future. I wish it to become one of the strongest motivations driving me to pursue a master’s degree in foreign language learning. I hope I can achieve this dream one day.
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