7. Materials Evaluation
Materials evaluation which is usually done in the end of the process of developing materials is needed in case to know whether the developed materials
are appropriate for the students or not. The definition of materials evaluation is described by Hutchinson and Waters 1987 as a matter of judging of fitness of
something for particular purpose. Tomlinson 1998:15 defines materials evaluation as follow.
Materials evaluation refers to attempts to measure the value of the materials. In many cases this is done impressionistically and
consists of attempts to predict whether or not the materials will work, in the sense that the learners will be able to use them without
too much difficulty and will enjoy the experience of doing so.
Materials evaluation is useful to get feedback from experts so that the materials designers are able to determine what they are going to do with the
materials, whether it is ready enough to use them for the learners or they still need revision. Regarding this research is under Indonesia context, the materials are
evaluated by materials evaluators which take the guideline from the government. The aspects that will be scored in each of the units are cover, appropriateness in
some aspects such as content, presentation, language and layout.
B. Relevant Studies
There are some related studies about designing English materials for vocational high schools that have been done by several researchers. English
materials including four skills of English, Reading, Writing, Listening and Speaking was already made by Reni Nugraheni 2012 for students grade X
majoring Technology and Informatics. The materials is based on CBI and the curriculum used to develop syllabus is School-based curriculum. Although this
study also concerns on computer terms, there are some differences between the previous one and this study. Reading materials for grade X are the focuses of this
study , while the study done by the previous reseracher deals with the four skills materials.
The research done by Fahmi Dwi Prasetyo 2013 is also relevant with this study as the researcher also takes developing reading and writing materials for
vocational high school students as the topic and concentrates on the materials for Pharmacy study program.
C. Conceptual Framework
Students of vocational high school need English not only for academic demanding but also for preparation to face the real working place in the future.
Computer Engineering and Networking program as one of the vocational schools programs in Indonesia needs English to support the students to be able to face the
invention of technology that has been growing rapidly. However, in reality students of this program meet some difficulties in learning English thoroughly.
One of the problems is that the available English materials are not really appropriate to keep up their field and even the changing of curriculum makes
everything look complicated. To solve the problems, the researcher tries to design Reading materials to
support the learning materials that will give impact to language teaching and
learning process. The product of this study then is expected to help students at Computer and Networking department become more excited to learn English,
especially Reading skills. Reading skill is chosen as the focus of this study since there are not many reading materials that are relevant to the field.
Since Computer and Networking students are different from regular high school in terms of the needs, the main approach used in this study is ESP. ESP is
placed in the first part in this research. It is defined asan approach to language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on the learners
reason for learning Hutchinson and Waters,1987:19. To see what the actual needs of the students are, a needs analysis is conducted by distributing
questionnaires. The result of the needs analysis then becomes the basis to make course grid of the reading materials. The materials are made about Computer and
Networking field, such as the reading text, task, and vocabulary. The implementation of ESP is followed by content-based instruction CBI
to develop the Reading materials. This approach is considered the best to apply since vocational schools students will understand better the language as well as
the content that supports their field. The materials then concentrate on the content around computer and
networking, including the tasks, terms, and vocabulary, which are developed based on the model of materials development proposed by Jolly and Bollitho
Tomlinson, 1998:98 while the tasks are organized by some principles suggested by Nunan 2004.
The materials which are already developed need to be evaluated by experts. Things to be considered in the materials evaluation are based on the
standard of materials evaluation Instrumen Penilaian Buku Bahasa Inggris SMK made by BNSP. After getting feedbacks, the materials are revised to get the final
draft of the materials. This will be considered as the appropriate reading materials for the students of Computer Engineering and Networking program grade X.
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