26 materials should fit the curriculum and encourage the learners in every aspect of
language learning.
5. Unit Development a. Components of Units
Richards 2001 lists a set of requirements for units of materials. He argues that units of materials should: 1 give learners something they can take away
from the lesson; 2 teach something learners feel they can use; 3 give learners a sense of achievement; 4 practice learning items in an interesting and novel way;
5 provide a pleasurable learning experience; 6 provide opportunities for success; 7 provide opportunities for individual practice; 8 provide
opportunities for personalization; and 9 provide opportunities for self- assessment of learning.
Units are one of the essential parts which form the materials. They can not be separated from the materials. A unit itself is composed by some components.
In developing a unit, the primary step that should be taken into account is the components. Referring to the list above, the components of units can be
concluded into some points, they are title, objective, sequence, reflection, summary, vocabulary, and fun space.
1 Title includes the title of the unit that is related to the students‟ study program.
2 Objective tells the students the language function and texts that they will learn
in the unit. 3
Sequence of tasks consists of warming up, main lesson, homework, and evaluation.
27 4
Reflection gives the students opportunity to reflect on what they have learnt from the unit.
5 Summary consists of the language function, structures, or texts that have been
learnt in the whole unit. 6
Vocabulary consists of some difficult words or technical terms and their phonetic transcriptions and meanings.
7 Fun space is optional and used to fill the blank space in the unit with something
funny or interesting.
b. The Model of Unit Design
Developing materials has some main parts. One of them is the unit. In this case, materials are developed into several units in order to make it easier for the
learners to learn. Moreover, materials should be arranged effectively so that it will be perceived as meaningful.
As proposed by Nunan 2004: 31, there are six steps of unit development. The first is schema building. In this step, the learners should be given exercises
that will serve to introduce the topic, set the context for the task, and introduce some of the key vocabularies and expressions the learners need to do the task. The
second step is controlled practice. In this step, the learners should be provided the controlled practice in using the target language vocabularies, structures, and
functions. It extends the learning initiated in the previous step. The next is authentic listening practice. In this step, the learners should be involved in
intensive listening practice. Then it would expose them to authentic or simulated conversation which could incorporate but extend the language from the model
