Materials Materials and Materials Development

linguistic features of the input. Materials should also provide the learners with opportunities to use the target language to achieve communication purposes. Good materials should facilitate learners‟ interaction by providing activities that creates interaction. Good materials should provide enough exposure of English. Tomlinson 1998 emphasizes that materials should take into account that the positive effects of instruction are usually delayed. It is suggested that materials developers need to recycle instruction and give frequent and sufficient exposure to the instructed language features in communicative use. Also, materials should take into account that learners differ in learning styles and in affective attitudes. This means that activities should be variable and accommodate all learning styles. Furthermore, materials should permit a silent period at the beginning of instruction. The point is that “the materials should not force premature speaking in the target language and they should not force s ilence either” Tomlinson, 1998, p.19. Next, materials should maximize learning potential by encouraging intellectual, aesthetic and emotional involvement which stimulates both right and left brain activities. It is also emphasized that materials should not rely too much on controlled practices. Lastly, Tomlinson 1998 suggests that materials should provide opportunities for outcome feedback. It means that it is very necessary for materials developers to ensure that language production activities have intended outcomes other than just practicing language. In line with Tomlinson, Offord-Gray and Aldred 1998 also mention seven principles underlying materials development. Following are the principles. a Principle I - Teaching and learning materials should reflect the needs as perceived by the discourse community. b Principle 2 - Teaching and learning materials need to be based on the knowledge of what is regarded as effective written communication in the discourse community. c Principle 3 - Teaching and learning materials need to reflect the communicative purposes for which the discourse community produces written texts. d Principle 4 - The forms and functions that characterize the internal linguistic structure of the texts need to be made explicit in the course materials. e Principle 5 - The course materials need to go beyond making the language explicit but provide a means by which learners can engage in a process of reconstruction f Principle 6 - Teaching and learning materials need to engage the learners in a process of developing skills for evaluating their own writing and becoming independent learners in the workplace. g Principle 7- The methodology and content of the teaching and learning materials need to be sensitive to learners‟ previous learning experience. Offord-Gray and Aldred, 1998, pp. 77-83 Similar to Tomlinson 1998 and Offord-Gray and Alred 1998, Graves 2000 also sets criteria to consider when designing activities. His additional criteria are that activities should integrate the four skills of speaking, listening, reading, and writing and activities should help students develop specific skills and strategies. A more recent work Crawford, 2002 mentions that effective teaching materials should follow eight statements; 1 language is functional and must be contextualized, 2 language development requires learner engagement in purposeful use of language, 3 the language used should be realistic and authentic, 4 classroom materials will usually seek to include an audio visual component, 5 second language learners need to develop the ability to deal with written as well as spoken genres, 6 effective teaching materials foster learner autonomy, 7 materials need to be flexible enough to cater to individual and contextual differences, and 8 learning needs to engage learners both affectively and cognitively. In general, the four authors put an emphasis on authentic, relevant, stimulating materials which consider learners‟ difference and needs. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI The right procedures of materials development will result in good instructional materials. Nunan 2004 argues that in order to create learning opportunities in the classroom, teachers should transform real-world task into pedagogical tasks. He proposes six steps or the sequence in developing units of work in a task-based classroom. The first step is schema building. In this step an instructional developer develops a number of schema-building exercises to introduce a topic, set the context for the task, and introduce some of the key vocabulary and expressions the students need to complete a task. The second step is to provide the students with controlled practice using the target language vocabulary, structures, and functions. The third step involves the students in intensive listening practice in which the students are exposed to authentic or simulated conversations. The fourth step focuses on linguistic elements. Here the students are supposed to take part in a sequence of exercise focusing on one or more linguistic elements. The next step is the time for the students to engage in freer practice. The students are encouraged to improvise, using whatever language they have to complete a task. Lastly, the students are introduced to the pedagogical task itself. It involves group work discussion and decision making task. In relation to the instructional sequence outlined above, there are underlying principles that are drawn as mentioned by Nunan 2004. The first principle is scaffolding. Lessons and materials should provide supporting frameworks within which the learning takes place. At the beginning of the learning process, learners should not be expected to produce language that has not been introduced either explicitly or implicitly. The second principle is task