Reframing English as a foreign language instruction through intercultural ukhuwah to enhance students’ communication skills
Abstract
Although communication has become a central objective of contemporary English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instruction, existing instructional approaches continue to emphasize linguistic competence and intercultural communication while giving limited attention to the ethical and relational values that support meaningful classroom interaction. Addressing this gap, this study investigated the effect of the Ukhuwah-based Intercultural English Instruction (Ub-IEI) Model on students’ communication skills. A quantitative pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design was employed involving 20 eleventh-grade vocational high school students in Gorontalo, Indonesia. Data were collected using a communication skills test and analyzed through descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, and a paired-sample t-test. The findings showed that students’ mean communication skills score increased from 32.80 to 65.10, and the paired-sample t-test revealed a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores (t (19) = -17.808, p < .001). These findings indicate that the Ub-IEI Model effectively enhances students’ communication skills by integrating meaningful communication, intercultural interaction, and ethical-relational values into English language learning. The study provides empirical support for Intercultural Ukhuwah as a value-based instructional perspective that complements existing approaches to intercultural English language education.
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