Imersi Bahasa Arab Indigenous: Pengelolaan Lingkungan Bahasa Arab Berbasis Budaya Pesantren

Abstract

Arabic language education in Indonesian pesantren has evolved from textual learning toward immersive environments that reflect the pesantren as a cultural ecosystem shaping multilingual identities. However, prior studies have tended to be normative and have insufficiently explored lived experiences and the social structures that sustain language environments. This study aims to examine the subjective experiences of kiai, administrators, and students in integrating pesantren culture into the management of the Arabic language environment at Pondok Modern Fathul Majid Bojonegoro. Using an interpretative phenomenological qualitative approach, the study involved 14 purposively selected participants. Data were collected through participatory observation, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis, then analyzed inductively through open, axial, and selective coding stages, guided by the hermeneutic circle principle and triangulation to ensure validity. The findings reveal four integrated management dimensions—planning, organizing, implementing, and monitoring—embedded within pesantren culture, transforming Arabic into a living practice that fosters communicative fluency, linguistic resilience, and the internalization of religious identity. Pesantren culture functions as a social field that reproduces linguistic habitus through the synergy of authority, collective discipline, and sustained immersion. The study concludes that pesantren can be modeled as an indigenous living language school that integrates classical kitab kuning traditions, hierarchical structures, and organic language management. Practically, this model offers hybrid strategies that can be replicated or adapted by other pesantren to optimize language environments while bridging tradition and the demands of modernity.