Improving Young Muslims’ English Literacy Skills and Religious Moderation Understanding through English for Islamic Studies Workshops

Abstract

Community service is a part of three pillars of higher education institutions in Indonesia. Empowerment as an act of community service should provide positive impacts to the community in certain aspects, including educational services. Currently, the English literacy skills of young Muslims in Indonesia related Islamic studies are considered important in terms of promoting and grasping the moderate Islamic teaching globally. Thus, this study aims to explore the impacts of the English education students’ empowerement on their English literacy skills through a series of workshop in English for Islamic Studies. Three face-to-face workshops were employed to depict the advantages of learning English literacies and religious moderation through English for Islamic Studies. This study reveals that the workshops were significantly beneficial for them in improving their understanding of religious moderation especially moderate Islam by categorizing four indicators of those principles, including national commitment, anti-violence, tolerance, and accommodative to the local wisdom and culture. Moreover, the workshop participants also improve their English literacy, specifically in reading and writing because they absorbed technical term of English words related to the religious moderation. The implication of the study was, first, the implementation of English for Islamic Studies significantly improves the participants English literacy, specifically in reading and writing skills. Second, the content materials delivered during the workshops have positively influence the participants’ understanding of religious moderation principles within moderate Islam. It enriched their capability in analysing religious moderation practices in their environment according to four indicators of being moderate.