Incorporating Values of Moderate Islam for the 21st Century Learners in an EFL Class

This present study aims to explore how to incorporate values of moderate Islam for the 21st century learners in an EFL class. This research was conducted in the single class consisting of 44 undergraduate students who took English for Islamic Education course at Institut Agama Islam Negeri Pekalongan. The data were collected through observation and interview. The finding has revealed that five values of moderate Islam could be noticed in the EFL class, namely: 1) objectivity, 2) tolerance in encountering diversity, 3) inclusiveness in receiving something new, 4) logic and flexibility in understanding texts, and 5) innovation in daily life. Another result demonstrates the lecturer’s pivotal roles in incorporating the values of moderate Islamic for the 21st century learners in the EFL class, including 1) facilitating as a good model to incorporate the values such as respecting diversity without any discrimination of gender and social backgrounds, respecting diversity in the learners’ responses, and having enthusiasm for helping the learners, 2) organizing an online group on Edmodo learning management system, and 3) providing the EFL learners with opportunities for enhancing good morality in both individual and group learning activities. Meanwhile, relating to the use of learning materials, online news articles containing Islamic values were used as the authentic materials, and EFL teaching may impact on the learners’ disappointment or conflict with the culture embedded in the learning materials.


Introduction
Education plays a very pivotal role in building a mode of characters of learners and society. Rohman (2017: 422) points out that education constitutes a strategic pillar to disseminate the values of tolerance, moderation, respect, and empathy, and to develop an attitude of non-violence for learners. The importance of skills and knowledge needs to be 21 Fachri Ali Incorporating Values of Moderate Islam for the 21st Century Learners in an EFL Class DOI: 10.28918/jei.v3i1.1299 enhanced in the 21 st century education. Teachers/lecturers should be technology-literate to face the advancement of technology so as to integrate this dynamics in their classes.
For this reason, it is necessary for teachers/lecturers, school/faculty members, and policy makers to rethink current views of scientific literacy that are needed for learners in the 21 st century (Choi, Lee, Shin, Kim, and Krajcik, 2011: 671)To meet this demand, Ait, Rannikmäe, Soobard, Reiska, and Holbrook (2015: 492) identify that there are six major criteria related to scientific literacy needed in the 21 st century, namely: 1) schools need to transform in ways that enable learners to acquire the sophisticated thinking, flexible problem solving, and collaboration and communication skills needed to be successful in work and everyday life, 2) through science education, learners need to develop an understanding of big ideas about objects, phenomena, materials, and relationship in the natural world, 3) individuals need to be nurtured who are able to appreciate diversity of values and culture sensitivities surrounding issues, to have compassion for others, collaboratively construct values for the larger welfare, and ultimately take action, 4) an increasing urgency needs to be recognized for skills such as analyzing the credibility and utility of information, evaluating its appropriateness and intelligently applying it, 5) skills are needed to infer meaning from science texts which relates to the ability to recognize the standard genres of science and their appropriate use to evaluate the claims and evidence advanced, and 6) metacognitive knowledge is also important need for science learning which is related to positive attitudes and knowledge gains.
Relating to the context of teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL), particularly in Indonesia, teachers/lecturers need to take into account of cultural contents in their classes since this country is considered unique in terms of religious diversity and language variety. Hidayati (2016: 67) promotes that Indonesia is regarded to be more dynamic, more tolerant, and respects the multi-culturalism and religious diversity of its community. Consequently, the cultural contents integrated in EFL teaching and learning may bring them into conflict with the culture upheld by EFL learners. Rohmah (2005: 116)  demonstrates the education that integrates the mental and physical knowledge and also the religious knowledge pertaining to the self and society (Hanapi, 2014: 60 Meanwhile, the data were collected through observation and interview as the instruments of the study. The former was carried out during three meetings in the classroom and used as the primary data, whereas the latter was done with the English lecturer and some of the students and functioned as the supporting data. These instruments were employed to uncover the main umbrella of the research questions, namely: how are values of moderate Islam incorporated for the 21 st century learners in an EFL class. The data, in addition, were analyzed in four steps, namely: 1) data reduction, 2) data transcription and coding, 3) data classification, and 4) data description and interpretation (Hatch, 2002).

Moderate Islam
The term 'moderate Islam' is required to be understood by Muslims. Yaakub and Othman (2016: 62) highlight that the words 'moderate Islam' (wasatiyyah) is a terminological term that represents a conceptual framework given only to the Muslim ummah as stated in the Qur'an, Surah al-Baqarah (2: 143). This term is a special message  Lastly, the trans-internalization of value that shows not only verbal communication, but also concern of mentality and personality to get students accustomed to character representing values of moderate Islam. These stages propose the importance of the internalization of moderate Islam values in education. Secondly, the lecturer organized an online group on Edmodo learning management system (LMS) and asked them to join this online learning platform as a part of learning processes. In other words, it is not sufficient if teachers become the ones who are responsible of using technology in their classes. For this reason, they should be able to encourage their students to take advantage of the rapid advancement of technology in preparing them for various professions in the 21 st century, in which they are incorporated with the values of moderate Islam.
This result reveals that it meets a study carried out by Ongardwanich et al. (2015: 738) declaring that measuring 21 st century skills is an important mechanism in reflecting the abilities of individuals on whether they are ready for specialized professions in the 21 st century. It indicates that one of skills needed by the 21 st century learners relates to the use of information, media, and technology that meets the value of innovation promoted in moderate Islam. In short, the integration of technology in language teaching has been beneficial for teachers/lecturers to achieve the well-established learning objectives internalized with these values. Thirdly, the lecturer provided the EFL learners with chances for enhancing good morality both individually and in groups. It agrees Kamal's (2017: 76) study explaining that the education of values is intended to give learners with opportunities for performing moral-based behavior individually and in groups and 2) encourage them to reflect themselves as both individual and social beings. It is also consistent with the study conducted by Ongardwanich et al. (2015: 738)

Century Learners
The use of authentic materials is very common in an EFL class. Based on the result of the interview, relating to the use of authentic materials, the lecturer used online news articles containing Islamic values from "The Jakarta Post" for several times. The lecturer stated that she was not sure whether the articles discussed moderate Islam or not and found difficulties in selecting the materials that were suitable for the pre-determined topics in the syllabus. It is in line with Rohmah's (2012: 160)  Considering the result of interview with some of the EFL learners, it is exposed that teaching an EFL class whose learners are majoring Islamic education department may impact on the learners' disappointment or conflict with the culture embedded in the learning materials provided. It agrees Hasyim and Suhono's (2017: 5)

Conclusions and Recommendations
The current study contributes to highlight how to incorporate values of moderate