The study involved 106 students divided into two groups: 52 students received intercultural instruction, while 54 were taught with conventional methods. Researchers used an embedded quasi-experimental pre-test-post-test non-equivalent group design, meaning the classes were existing groups rather than randomly assigned. Before the intervention began, tests showed no statistically significant difference between the groups’ critical thinking scores, with t(104) = −0.266 and p = .791, indicating that the two classes started from a comparable baseline.

Critical thinking was measured quantitatively using the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal. The researchers also collected qualitative data through open-ended post-intervention reflection questionnaires, allowing them to capture students’ own accounts of the classroom experience alongside the standardized scores.

After the twelve weeks, the post-test results told a different story. The treatment group significantly outperformed the comparison group on the critical thinking measure, with t(104) = 2.70 and p = .008. The effect size was moderate, at d = 0.53. The authors note that although the numerical gain was modest, a moderate effect size for a relatively short classroom intervention represents an educationally meaningful improvement rather than a trivial one.

Beyond the test scores, the qualitative responses indicated that intercultural instruction fostered a positive and engaging learning environment that supported the development of critical thinking among the English learners. These findings complemented the quantitative results by pointing to learner engagement as a factor associated with the instructional approach.

The researchers conclude that intercultural instruction is a promising pedagogical approach for fostering critical thinking in EFL learners. They underline the value of integrating intercultural content into English language curricula, arguing that such integration can strengthen both learner engagement and the growth of critical thinking skills, which they describe as a key educational competence for the twenty-first century.

The study’s design carries limitations worth noting. Because the groups were intact classes rather than randomly assigned individuals, the quasi-experimental design cannot rule out all pre-existing differences between the groups, even though the pre-test found none that were statistically significant. The intervention took place in a single Ethiopian higher education context, so generalization to other institutions, countries or age groups would require further research.

Even so, the findings offer language educators a concrete, testable idea: that the cultural dimension of language teaching can do double duty. Rather than treating intercultural content as separate from skills development, the Ethiopian study suggests that weaving intercultural instruction into everyday English lessons may measurably strengthen critical thinking, with effects visible after a single academic term.

Subject of Research: Effects of intercultural instruction on the critical thinking skills of EFL learners in Ethiopian higher education

Article Title: Effects of intercultural instruction on EFL learners’ critical thinking skills

Article References: Bishaw, M. S., Tariku, M. E., & Dememe, B. Z. (2026). Effects of intercultural instruction on EFL learners’ critical thinking skills. SN Social Sciences, 6(11), Article 574. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01861-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01861-3

Keywords: critical thinking, EFL, intercultural instruction, quasi-experimental, Ethiopia, Watson-Glaser, higher education, language teaching, effect size, learner engagement, curriculum, Effects

The research, conducted by Fitria Fitria of UIN Maulana Malik Ibrahim in Malang, Faishol Mahmud Adam Ibrahim of the University of the Holy Quran and Islamic Sciences in Omdurman, Sudan, and Irham Irham of Universiti Sains Malaysia, examined how Indonesian pre-service Arabic teachers perceive the status and role of Arabic and how those perceptions shape their professional aspirations. The team employed a convergent parallel mixed-methods design, a strategy in which quantitative questionnaire data and qualitative semi-structured interview data are collected and analyzed in parallel before being merged into a single interpretive account. This design allowed the researchers to measure broad attitudinal patterns across the participant group while simultaneously probing the personal narratives and ideological commitments that underlie those patterns.

Two theoretical lenses guided the analysis. The first is language ideology, a framework in sociolinguistics concerned with the beliefs, often implicit, that speakers hold about what languages are, what they are for, and who has the authority to speak and teach them. The second is native speakerism, a concept introduced in applied linguistics to describe the assumption that native speakers of a language are, by virtue of birth alone, its ideal owners and therefore its ideal teachers. Native speakerism has been extensively documented in English language teaching, where it structures hiring practices, curriculum design, and student expectations worldwide. Its application to Arabic pedagogy in a non-Arab country adds an important comparative dimension, because Arabic carries a sacral weight that English does not.

The study’s central finding is what the authors describe as a sacred–instrumental duality in participants’ motivations for learning Arabic. On one side of this duality, the future teachers view Arabic as the indispensable key to Islamic knowledge, the language in which the Quran, the hadith corpus, and centuries of religious scholarship are encoded. Learning Arabic is thus framed as an act of religious devotion and a prerequisite for authentic engagement with sacred texts. On the other side, participants treat Arabic as a strategic resource, a form of what the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called linguistic capital: an asset that can be converted into educational opportunity, international mobility, and professional advantage. The same language that opens the gates of theology also opens doors to scholarships in the Arab world, employment in Islamic institutions, and participation in transnational Muslim networks.

This duality extends into the participants’ geographic imagination. The researchers identified a strong attachment to what they term sacred geography, particularly Saudi Arabia, which participants associated with both linguistic and religious authenticity. In the classical Islamic tradition, scholars developed elaborate mappings of the world organized around the Kaaba in Mecca, a phenomenon historians of science have described as the culmination of Islamic sacred geography. The study suggests that a modern descendant of this orientation persists in the way Indonesian trainee teachers imagine the Arab heartland as the place where Arabic is spoken in its purest and most legitimate form. Mecca and Medina function not merely as pilgrimage destinations but as symbolic centers of linguistic authority, against which local varieties of Arabic and local teaching practices are implicitly measured.

Perhaps the most nuanced finding concerns the participants’ stance toward native speakers. On the surface, the future teachers idealized the native speaker as the authoritative owner of Arabic, reproducing the classic native speakerist hierarchy in which birthplace confers pedagogical legitimacy. Yet when the researchers examined the participants’ actual pedagogical values, they found a pragmatic shift underway. The trainees prioritized academic qualification and professional training over nativeness alone, indicating that they regarded a well-trained non-native teacher with strong credentials as at least equal to, and potentially preferable to, an untrained native speaker. This divergence between ideological idealization and practical evaluation suggests that native speakerism in Arabic teaching operates less as a rigid doctrine than as a negotiable framework, one that yields to considerations of competence, certification, and classroom effectiveness.

The Indonesian context is essential for understanding why these findings matter. Indonesia is home to the world’s largest Muslim population, and Arabic has long been embedded in its educational infrastructure, from the pesantren, the traditional Islamic boarding schools where classical texts are studied, to state Islamic universities where Arabic serves as a medium of instruction in international programs. Previous scholarship has documented persistent methodological problems in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers in Indonesia, as well as debates over the language’s place in the national curriculum. At the same time, research on English in Indonesian Islamic higher education has shown that students routinely weigh the promises of global languages against local religious and cultural commitments. The new study extends this line of inquiry to Arabic, revealing that the same negotiation between global utility and local identity plays out in the religiously charged domain of Arabic pedagogy.

The theoretical implications reach beyond Indonesia. The findings suggest that for many learners in Muslim-majority settings, Arabic pedagogy functions as a site of negotiation between spiritual idealization and localized professional competence. Language ideology and native speakerism, the authors argue, intersect in ways that are specific to sacred languages: the authority of the native speaker is reinforced by religious associations with the language’s places of origin, yet it is simultaneously tempered by the practical recognition that teaching is a skill requiring training. This produces a hybrid professional identity in which the future teacher is both a devotee approaching a sacred tongue and a technician mastering a teachable subject. The duality is not experienced as contradiction by the participants themselves; rather, it appears to be a stable and productive feature of their motivation.

For teacher educators and policymakers, the study carries concrete lessons. If pre-service Arabic teachers are motivated by both religious attachment and career aspirations, then teacher preparation programs that address only one of these dimensions are likely to miss the mark. Curricula that acknowledge the spiritual significance of Arabic while simultaneously building rigorous pedagogical and linguistic competence may be better positioned to develop teachers who can serve Indonesia’s diverse Islamic educational institutions. The finding that participants value qualifications over nativeness also offers support for strengthening local teacher training rather than relying on imported native-speaker models, an approach that has been criticized in English language teaching for marginalizing local expertise.

The study, published on 15 September 2026 as volume 6, article 436 of SN Social Sciences, was conducted as independent research without external funding and followed established ethical protocols, with informed consent obtained from all participants and pseudonyms used throughout to protect privacy. The authors note that the underlying data are not publicly available for confidentiality reasons but can be requested from the first author. As debates over language policy in superdiverse societies continue, the Indonesian case offers a vivid illustration of how a single language can be many things at once: a prayer, a paycheck, a passport, and a profession. For the next generation of Arabic teachers in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, the classroom is where all of these meanings converge.

Subject of Research: Language ideology and native speakerism among Indonesian pre-service Arabic teachers

Article Title: Intersecting perspectives of Indonesian pre-service Arabic teachers towards Arabic: from a language of communication to expression of religious attachment

Article References: Fitria, F., Ibrahim, F. M. A., & Irham, I. (2026). Intersecting perspectives of Indonesian pre-service Arabic teachers towards Arabic: from a language of communication to expression of religious attachment. SN Social Sciences, 6(9), Article 436. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01735-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01735-8

Keywords: Arabic language, Indonesia, pre-service teachers, language ideology, native speakerism, linguistic capital, sacred geography, religious identity, Islamic education, mixed methods, language teaching, SN Social Sciences

Processing Instruction rests on a theory of how the mind handles a new language. Developed by Bill VanPatten in the 1990s, the Input Processing framework argues that learners have limited attentional resources and therefore do not process every feature of the language they hear or read. Two default strategies dominate. The Primacy of Meaning Principle holds that learners prioritize communicative meaning over grammatical form, often leaning on salient lexical cues instead of subtle morphology. The First Noun Principle holds that learners initially treat the first noun or pronoun in a sentence as the agent, which produces systematic errors with passive and causative constructions, where word order misleads. The theory makes a specific prediction: if classroom activities make a grammatical form necessary for understanding meaning, learners should abandon these shortcuts and interpret the form accurately.

That prediction is operationalized through structured input activities, the engine of Processing Instruction. Referential activities are engineered so that a correct answer is impossible without attending to the target form; removing a temporal adverb, for example, forces learners to rely on tense morphology rather than a convenient word like yesterday. Affective activities then invite personal, meaningful responses once the form-meaning connection has been established. The review found that this machinery produced the most consistent gains in grammatical comprehension and sentence interpretation of any method examined, and that Processing Instruction and structured input generally outperformed Traditional Instruction, with its emphasis on explicit rules and mechanical drills, on those receptive outcomes.

The evidence across grammatical targets was remarkably broad. For causative forms, structured input helped learners overcome the First Noun Principle and process word order accurately, with improvements retained for up to six months in some studies, and eye-tracking confirmed that trained learners showed more accurate sentence processing and measurable changes in gaze patterns compared with traditionally taught peers. For the English simple past, learners of different ages benefited on interpretation and production tasks, though adults outperformed children on more demanding items. Effects also extended to passive constructions, articles, embedded questions, future tense, third-person singular agreement, and even pragmatic targets such as request modifiers, suggesting the approach is versatile rather than tied to a single construction.

Production, however, told a different story. Gains in learners’ own speaking and writing were less consistent and were strongest when input-based instruction was followed by structured output, unstructured output, or collaborative production tasks such as dictogloss, in which learners reconstruct a dictated text together. In several comparisons, dictogloss actually outperformed Processing Instruction alone on writing accuracy, likely because of its interactive nature, and output tasks boosted learners’ willingness to communicate more than input tasks did. Structured output without prior structured input produced weaker comprehension gains, pointing toward a sequence: first establish the form-meaning connection through carefully designed input, then practice production.

Long-term retention remains the weakest link in the evidence base. Only about nine of the 23 studies included delayed post-tests, and their timing varied widely. Short follow-ups of roughly two to three weeks generally preserved comprehension gains and sometimes production gains, and one study found learners still above baseline on interpretation and production after eight months, albeit with some decline. But because so few studies used comparable long-term measures, the authors caution that claims about durable effects should remain tentative until more longitudinal research accumulates.

The review also uncovered a measurement problem that shapes how impressive the results look. Most studies relied on grammaticality judgment tests, acceptability judgment tests, and interpretation tasks, all receptive measures that align closely with what Processing Instruction is designed to train. This receptive-measure bias may have amplified the apparent consistency of the method’s effects. A minority of studies enriched the picture with eye-tracking and self-paced reading, which capture how learners process sentences in real time, and timed judgment tasks helped distinguish rapidly accessible grammatical knowledge from untimed reflection. A fuller evaluation, the authors argue, requires productive, discourse-level, and communicative measures alongside online processing data.

Methodological constraints further temper the conclusions. Ten of the 23 studies came from Iran, with additional work from Kuwait, the United Kingdom, Greece, Hong Kong, China, Germany, Taiwan, and Turkey, leaving Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America essentially unrepresented. Samples were typically small and homogeneous, interventions were short, quasi-experimental designs predominated, and control conditions varied in strength. The authors applied the JBI critical appraisal checklist for quasi-experimental studies and weighted findings accordingly, placing greater confidence in studies with comparison groups, reliable outcome measures, and delayed post-tests, and treating small-sample results more cautiously.

For theory, the pattern largely vindicates Input Processing. The strongest effects appeared exactly where the theory predicts them, on comprehension and interpretation, including constructions that the First Noun Principle identifies as error-prone. The weaker transfer to spontaneous production qualifies rather than contradicts the framework, since the theory primarily explains how input becomes intake; retrieval and communicative practice appear to be needed for later use. The result is a conditional, sequenced model of grammar instruction rather than a one-method-fits-all prescription, with learner variables such as age, working memory, proficiency, and learning style moderating outcomes.

The practical takeaway for teachers is that Processing Instruction earns its place as a theoretically grounded, comprehension-first component of grammar teaching, but not as a complete curriculum. The evidence supports sequencing targeted structured input before purposeful output and communicative practice, combining the interpretive precision of structured input with the retrieval benefits of production work and the explicit awareness that traditional explanation can supply. Future research, the authors conclude, should recruit larger and more diverse samples, adopt stronger comparison designs, extend delayed post-tests over longer intervals, and test the approach across a far wider range of EFL contexts before its long-term promise can be considered proven.

Subject of Research: Effectiveness of Processing Instruction for grammar learning in English as a Foreign Language contexts

Article Title: Processing instruction in english as a foreign language context: a systematic review

Article References: Mauludin, L. A., & Stefano, I. (2026). Processing instruction in english as a foreign language context: a systematic review. SN Social Sciences, 6(10), Article 497. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01787-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01787-w

Keywords: Processing Instruction, structured input, EFL, grammar instruction, second language acquisition, input processing, systematic review, language teaching, comprehension, retention, eye-tracking, output tasks

The researchers adopted a qualitative descriptive design, a methodology suited to capturing the texture of professional experience rather than measuring it numerically. Participants completed an open-ended questionnaire, and the responses were subjected to thematic analysis, a systematic technique for identifying recurring patterns of meaning across qualitative data. A single frequency item was analysed descriptively to gauge how often teachers reported integrating cultural content. The sample size of 42 sits comfortably within accepted guidance for thematic studies, where the analytical goal is depth of information rather than statistical generalisation.

Three major themes emerged from the analysis. The first concerned how teachers actually integrate and implement cultural identity in their teaching. The second addressed their perceptions of the impact of that integration and how cultural content in EFL teaching has evolved over time. The third focused on the professional development and institutional support teachers believe cultural integration requires. Together, the themes trace a full arc from classroom practice to perceived outcomes to the systemic conditions that make such practice sustainable.

In practical terms, the teachers described a remarkably varied repertoire. They reported incorporating local customs, national events, everyday practices, folklore, and historical narratives into English-language activities. A discussion prompt might centre on a Saudi festival rather than a Western holiday; a reading passage might be adapted to reflect familiar social routines; storytelling exercises might draw on regional folklore. The frequency and form of this integration, however, varied considerably from teacher to teacher, suggesting that culturally responsive EFL teaching in Saudi Arabia remains largely an individual craft rather than a standardised curriculum feature.

The theoretical backdrop for this work is sociocultural theory, which holds that learning is fundamentally a socially situated process mediated by the learner’s cultural tools and prior knowledge. When students encounter new vocabulary and grammar through familiar cultural frames, the theory predicts, comprehension and retention should improve because the new material anchors to existing mental structures. The study also aligns with the broader literature on culturally responsive teaching, which argues that instruction is most effective when it validates and builds upon learners’ identities rather than replacing them with foreign reference points.

The Saudi context gives this question particular weight. English has expanded rapidly in the Kingdom, driven by economic diversification goals and the educational ambitions associated with Saudi Vision 2030, yet educators have long debated how to teach it without eroding national and religious identity. Previous scholarship has analysed the cultural content of Saudi EFL textbooks and critiqued the dominance of native-speaker norms in materials. The new study adds the voices of practising teachers to that conversation, documenting how they perceive the balance between global competence and cultural continuity.

Teachers in the study perceived culturally familiar content as making English instruction more relevant to their students. They associated its use with higher engagement, greater participation, strengthened cultural pride, and heightened cultural awareness. The authors are careful to frame these as teachers’ perceptions rather than directly measured effects: the study did not experimentally test whether cultural integration improves engagement or learning outcomes. That caveat matters, but it does not diminish the finding that experienced practitioners consistently observe a connection between cultural relevance and student responsiveness in their classrooms.

The study also documents significant friction. Teachers reported constraints related to the scarcity of culturally relevant materials, limited curricular flexibility, and gaps in professional preparation. Many described improvising cultural content because textbooks offered little support, and some indicated that their initial teacher training had not equipped them with strategies for culturally situated instruction. These constraints echo findings from other EFL contexts, where teachers often act as cultural mediators without institutional recognition or resources for that role. The authors argue that appropriate materials, curricular support, and professional preparation are essential if cultural integration is to move from individual initiative to systemic practice.

The findings carry implications well beyond Saudi Arabia. Across the world, English is taught to learners whose lived realities differ sharply from the Anglophone settings that dominate many textbooks, and scholars in global Englishes have increasingly questioned the assumption that native-speaker standards should define the target culture of instruction. The Saudi study contributes empirical evidence that local cultural knowledge can function as a pedagogical resource, a bridge rather than a barrier, in the process of acquiring an international language. It suggests that the dichotomy between learning English and preserving identity may be false when teachers are given the tools to contextualise instruction.

For policymakers and teacher educators, the message is concrete. Curriculum designers could embed culturally relevant content in EFL materials rather than leaving it to improvisation; teacher preparation programmes could include explicit training in culturally responsive pedagogy; and schools could grant teachers the flexibility to adapt lessons to local contexts. The study, funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Northern Border University and approved by the university’s research ethics committee, involved voluntary participation with informed consent and confidentiality safeguards. Its authors conclude that local cultural knowledge is not a distraction from English learning but a foundation for it, provided the educational system supplies the materials, flexibility, and preparation that culturally situated teaching demands.

Subject of Research: Integrating Saudi cultural identity into English as a foreign language instruction

Article Title: Integrating Saudi cultural identity into EFL instruction: a qualitative study of teachers’ perspectives

Article References: Al-khresheh, M. H., Alruwaili, S. F., & Almayez, M. (2026). Integrating Saudi cultural identity into EFL instruction: a qualitative study of teachers’ perspectives. SN Social Sciences, 6(10), Article 501. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43545-026-01809-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43545-026-01809-7

Keywords: cultural identity, EFL instruction, Saudi Arabia, language teaching, teacher perspectives, qualitative research, thematic analysis, culturally responsive teaching, sociocultural theory, teacher training, curriculum, global Englishes