---
title: "Improving English Grammar Skills Through Islamic Content and"
description: "The study asks whether English grammar teaching in Indonesian Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) can be improved by… 29 references."
authors: ["Jarum Jarum", "Rafika Rabba Farah"]
year: 2026
venue: "Journal of Languages and Language Teaching 14"
source: "https://e-journal.undikma.ac.id/index.php/jollt/article/view/15244"
doi: "10.33394/jollt.v14i1.15244"
licence: "CC BY-SA (journal licence per DOAJ; Journal of Languages and Language Teaching)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/jarum-2026-improving-english-grammar-skills-through/"
---
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# Improving English Grammar Skills Through Islamic Content and Technology for Secondary School Students in Islamic Boarding Schools

**Authors:** Jarum Jarum and Rafika Rabba Farah · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** [Journal of Languages and Language Teaching 14](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/journal-of-languages-and-language-teaching/) ([Journal of Languages and Language Teaching 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/journal-of-languages-and-language-teaching/2026/)) · **Licence:** [CC BY-SA (journal licence per DOAJ; Journal of Languages and Language Teaching)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v14i1.15244) · [PDF](https://e-journal.undikma.ac.id/index.php/jollt/article/download/15244/9368) · [DOI 10.33394/jollt.v14i1.15244](https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v14i1.15244) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7128435338)

**Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The study asks whether English grammar teaching in Indonesian Islamic boarding schools (pesantren) can be improved by combining religious subject matter with a gamified quiz platform. In these schools, English competes with religious studies for time and is usually taught in a teacher-centred way with few engaging materials. The authors ran a one-group pre-test/post-test experiment with 26 secondary students chosen by purposive sampling. Over four weeks, the students practised grammar on Quizizz using Islamic-themed content, with game-style quizzes and instant feedback. The same grammar test was given before and after the intervention, and observation and student feedback were also collected. The post-test scores were not normally distributed, so the authors used the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test instead of the planned paired t-test. Every student scored higher afterwards, and the difference was significant (p ≈ 0.000). The authors argue that culturally familiar content delivered through interactive tools can raise both grammar performance and engagement. They acknowledge three limitations: there was no control group, the study covered a single school, and long-term retention was not measured.

## Key points
- Design: pre-experimental, one group, pre-test and post-test. Participants were 26 pesantren secondary students selected for similar starting proficiency.
- Intervention: four weeks of grammar practice on Quizizz with Islamic content, gamified quizzes and real-time feedback. The identical test served as both pre-test and post-test.
- Shapiro-Wilk normality check: pre-test Sig. = .513 (normal), post-test Sig. = .035 (not normal). This led to the switch from the paired t-test to the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test.
- Rank summary: 26 positive ranks, no negative ranks and no ties. Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) = 0.000 \< 0.05.
- A Scopus search for Quizizz + teaching + grammar returned only 5 prior papers, and none of them addressed Islamic content in a pesantren setting.

## Interesting ideas
- Before choosing a significance test, check the distribution of each paired score set and fall back to a rank-based test when normality fails, which makes conclusions from small samples more defensible.
- Report how many items improved, worsened or stayed tied, not just a p-value, because this exposes whether a gain is broad or carried by a few cases.
- The authors admit that a single group retested on the same test cannot separate the effect of the intervention from retest or practice effects, which is a general warning about uncontrolled before/after evaluation.
- Grammar practice is embedded in content the learners already know well, so the meaning is familiar and attention can focus on form.
- Immediate feedback after each quiz item is credited with reinforcing rules. This suggests short exercise-score-correct cycles rather than delayed batch evaluation.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (learn): when comparing two parser or reader versions on the same small test suite, run a normality check on the per-item score differences, then choose between a paired t-test and a Wilcoxon signed-rank test instead of reporting raw mean gains.
- **I2** (learn): print per-sentence win/loss/tie counts in LAS or answer accuracy between the old and new model, so regressions hidden by an average improvement become visible.
- **I3** (learn): always pair a change (new repair rule, new silver data) with a negative control run without it, and use held-out items rather than reusing the test that guided the change.
- **I4** (answer): build grammar-focused school-course test items from fables and tales whose world Mova already models, so that failures can be attributed to syntax handling rather than missing world knowledge.
- **I5** (learn): in self-play and LLM-teacher loops, score and correct each generated item right away, so repair rules are induced from fresh, localized errors.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

Also on the byline: [Universitas Muhammadiyah Malang](https://ror.org/01j1wt659).

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## Cite

Cite as: Jarum Jarum and Rafika Rabba Farah. 2026. Improving English Grammar Skills Through Islamic Content and Technology for Secondary School Students in Islamic Boarding Schools. Journal of Languages and Language Teaching 14.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{jarum2026improving,
  title = {{Improving English Grammar Skills Through Islamic Content and Technology for Secondary School Students in Islamic Boarding Schools}},
  author = {Jarum Jarum and Rafika Rabba Farah},
  journal = {Journal of Languages and Language Teaching 14},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.33394/jollt.v14i1.15244},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.33394/jollt.v14i1.15244}
}
```

- [← previous Improving Chain-of-Thought for Logical Reasoning via Attention-Aware Intervention](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/nguyen-2026-improving-chain-thought-logical-reasoning/)
- [next → Improving Language Identification for Code-Switched Speech: The Pivotal Role of Accented English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/patra-2026-improving-language-identification-code-switched/)
- [↑ back to papers of 2026](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2026/page/33/)

## References

29 references, 0 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work.

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*Updated 31 October 2026*