<![CDATA[This study investigates the effect of a role-playing strategy on the Arabic speaking skills of ninth-grade students at Pondok Pesantren Modern Arafah Sungai Penuh, Kerinci, Jambi. The study was motivated by observed difficulties in oral Arabic communication, including limited vocabulary, insufficient speaking practice, hesitation, fear of making mistakes, and learning activities that tended to be teacher-centered. A quantitative pre-experimental approach was employed using a one-group pretest-posttest design. The participants were all 10 ninth-grade students, selected through total sampling. Data were collected through an oral Arabic speaking test covering pronunciation, vocabulary, grammatical accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk normality test, a paired-samples t-test, and normalized gain analysis. The mean pretest score was 64.90, while the mean posttest score increased to 80.10. The paired-samples t-test produced a significance value of 0.000, which was below 0.05, indicating a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores. The mean N-Gain was 0.4407, categorized as moderate. These findings indicate that role playing was associated with a significant improvement in students' Arabic speaking performance. The strategy provided structured opportunities for direct oral practice, interaction, vocabulary use, pronunciation practice, and greater participation. The study contributes empirical evidence concerning role playing in Arabic speaking instruction in an Islamic boarding-school context, while its small sample and one-group design require cautious interpretation.]]>
