<![CDATA[This study examines the effectiveness of example-based grammar instruction (EBGI) in improving English tense mastery among Malaysian tahfidz students. Limited research has investigated the use of a single representative template sentence as the primary instructional scaffold for teaching English tenses in tahfidz or comparable Islamic educational settings. Grounded in Usage-Based Language Theory, EBGI was implemented as a five-step procedure in which students analyzed a model sentence and generalized its grammatical pattern to produce similar constructions. A one-group pretest-posttest design involved 13 students at a private tahfidz secondary school in Selangor, Malaysia. Data were collected using a 20-item multiple-choice grammar test administered before and after two instructional sessions and analyzed using descriptive statistics, a paired-samples t-test, Cohen’s dᶻ, and normalized gain (N-Gain). Mean scores increased from 43.46 (SD = 14.34) on the pretest to 53.08 (SD = 15.35) on the posttest. However, the difference was not statistically significant, t(12) = -1.720, p = .111. The effect size was modest (dᶻ = .477), while the mean N-Gain score (0.125) was categorized as low. These findings provide preliminary evidence of the potential pedagogical value of EBGI for English tense learning, although its effectiveness could not be established under the conditions of this study. Further research should employ larger samples, control groups, longer treatment periods, and production-based assessments.]]>
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