Features and teaching/learning activities used in educational android mobile applications to teach quranic arabic vocabulary

Abstract

Today, the use of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has become truly ubiquitous. This has created an opportunity for mobile learning to prosper. Mobile learning applications have become so popular that there are thousands of developers and tens of thousands of educational apps on numerous subjects, including language learning, which can be easily downloaded and installed on mobile devices. One area of interest for Muslims is Quranic Arabic vocabulary learning. This qualitative exploratory study aims to examine all Quranic Arabic vocabulary learning applications provided on the Google Play Store website through content analysis in order to determine their features and the teaching activities. Data was gathered both from the ‘product detail’ page on the Play Store and from the testing of the application by the researchers. The findings of this study indicate that most Quranic Arabic vocabulary mobile apps deliver their lessons through a textual interface though there are several apps which also include pictures, audio, and videos in their lessons. Many apps also provide exercises in the form of translation, matching items, and sentence completion. However, only four apps provide assessments. As a conclusion, this exploratory study has shed some light on the current state of Quranic Arabic vocabulary mobile apps in terms of their features and activities and it is hoped that more apps will be developed in the near future to cater to the needs of millions of Muslim adults who want to improve their devotional practices.