The Arabic Grammar Competence and Performance among Religious Stream Students at National Lower Secondary School, Terengganu, Malaysia

Some efforts and changes should be done to ensure the teaching of Arabic grammar is in line with its objectives and follows the current language teaching theories. This is to overcome problems related to students’ inability to use the learned rules in writing and speaking accurately and fluently. This study aims to measure students’ knowledge of Arabic grammar and their performance of Arabic grammar in writing and speaking in order to measure the gap between students’ knowledge and performance of Arabic grammar. This quantitative study used 3 types of tests for collecting data that involved a writing test for measuring students’ knowledge of Arabic grammar, a writing test for measuring students’ performance of Arabic grammar in writing, and an oral test for measuring students’ performance of Arabic grammar in speaking. This study found that students’s knowledge of Arabic grammar is better than their performance of using Arabic grammar in their writing and speaking. This study also found that students’s performance of Arabic grammar in writing is better than speaking. This study concludes that a balanced emphasis should be given to theory and practice, rules and usage, and competence and performance during the process of teaching and learning of Arabic grammar, so that the students can benefit optimum success in their learning.