Where Alignment Stops: Auditing an Arabic Speaking Syllabus against the IMTA’ Proficiency Framework

Abstract

Arabic is a compulsory component of the curriculum in Indonesian Islamic higher education, yet the syllabus through which it is operationalised is seldom examined against an external proficiency framework, so alignment is asserted in accreditation files rather than demonstrated. This study evaluates the syllabus of a first-semester Arabic speaking course at UIN Sjech M. Djamil Djambek Bukittinggi, Indonesia, against level A1 of the IMTA’ framework for teaching Arabic to speakers of other languages. A qualitative content analysis of the course document coded its programme, course, and topic-level outcomes at two separate levels, the substance of the outcome and the operational verb that carries it, and mapped each to the framework’s productive indicators. Separating the two levels yields an audit procedure reusable on other course documents, because a document may name the right competences while specifying none in a form that can be taught or assessed; applied before accreditation review, the procedure locates the point at which an international standard reaches the classroom or stops at the level of policy, and it moves the evaluative question from whether a syllabus mentions the standard to whether the standard survives its translation into verbs, activities, and assessment tasks.