Learners and Context Research and Information Collecting
60 distributed to twelve students of first semester students of the History Department.
The questions were written in Bahasa Indonesia so that the students could understand the questions better. The researcher conducted the pre-design
questionnaires on December 10
th
, 2014. It should be noted that the students were given the opportunity to choose more than one options in each question. The
result of the pre-design questionnaires was presented in Table 4.2.
Table 4.2 The Result of Students’ Questionnaires
No Questions
Options Number
of Students
Percentage 100
1. What kinds of skills
that you need to support your English
study in History Department?
a. Reading
6 50
b. Writing
7 58.33
c. Listening
5 41.67
d. Speaking
7 58.33
2. Do you have difficulty
in learning English? a.
Yes 8
66.67 b.
No 4
33.33 3.
What do you do when you have difficulty in
learning English? a.
Ask the lecturer 6
50 b.
Ask friends 8
66.67 c.
Find out from dictionary 6
50 d.
Others 1
8.3 4.
What kinds of difficulty that you
mostly have in learning English?
a. Reading
5 41.67
b. Writing
4 33.33
c. Listening
1 8.3
d. Speaking
3 25
e. Vocabulary
9 75
f. Grammar
11 91.67
g. Pronunciation
4 33.33
5. What strategies do you
need to improve your English skill?
a. Give reading exercises
related to historical study 3
25 b.
Give historical reading texts along with grammar
and vocabulary exercises 6
50
c. Give grammar and
vocabulary exercises to be applied in writing
9 75
d. Give English course in
3 25
61
No Questions
Options Number
of Students
Percentage 100
complete English teaching instead of
Bahasa Indonesia
e. Do a presentation with
historical theme in front of the classroom to
improve speaking 7
58.33
f. Others
2 16.67
6. What kinds of
exercises do you need to improve your
English skill? a.
Comprehension questions related to reading texts
3 25
b. True or false statements
related to reading texts 2
16.67 c.
Find the meaning of the vocabulary list and make
sentences vocabulary building
10 83.33
d. Find the part of speech of
the vocabulary list and analyze the word classes
9 75
e. Others
1 8.3
Based on the pre-design questionnaire result, the researcher listed some points that could be used as the considerations in designing the materials. The
points listed were analyzed as follows: a
Writing and speaking skill were chosen as the skills that were needed by the History Department students in which 7 students chose writing 58.33 and
7 students also chose speaking 58.33. Reading came in next as it was chosen by 6 students 50.
b Most of the students agreed that they had difficulty in learning English as
shown in Table 4.2 that 8 students chose yes as their choice 66.67.
62 c
The History Department students mostly had difficulty in grammar as 11 students chose the option 91.67 which then followed by vocabulary as 9
students chose the option 75. Reading came in third since there were 5 student who chose the option 41.67. The students believed that grammar
and vocabulary played important parts in reading since they helped them understand historical texts better. Despite speaking was chosen as one of the
most needed skill in English, it was noted that the students did not have much difficulty as long as they were able to write well using correct grammar and
had appropriate vocabulary. As shown in Table 4.2, 4 students agreed that writing was also difficult for them 44.44.
d When the students had difficulty, they tended to ask their friends. There were
8 students chose this option 66.67. The other options which were also chosen were ask the lecturer and find out from a dictionary in which each of
the option was chosen by 6 students 50. e
Most of the students chose that given exercise of grammar and vocabulary to be applied in writing as the best strategy in learning English as 9 students
75 chose this option. Came in second, there were 7 students who chose the option to do a presentation with historical theme in front of the class
58.33. The students also agreed that the option to give historical reading texts along with grammar and vocabulary exercises was also a good strategy
as 6 students chose it 50. It is believed by the students that vocabulary played an important part to improve their English as 10 students chose that
vocabulary building exercise was necessary to support their reading and
63 writing 83.33. Moreover, analyzing the part of speech and word classes
could also help them improve their English as it was chosen by 9 students 75.
Based on the pre-design questionnaire result, the students chose writing and speaking as the skills they needed the most. This finding was supported with
the answer of question number five about the best strategy in learning English. Nine students chose grammar and vocabulary exercises to be applied in writing
75 and 7 students chose to do a presentation with a historical theme 58.33. However, the History Department set the targets of English learning of its
students to cover reading comprehension and writing competence. Therefore, the researcher opted to design materials which focused on the improvement of reading
and writing skills. Afterwards, the researcher also adjusted the designed materials to match the topics of reading and writing syllabi to be implemented in the
classroom. Finally, it was determined that the suitable materials for the History Department students should consist of historical reading texts and its
comprehension questions, vocabulary and grammar exercises to improve their reading and writing tasks in which the vocabulary and grammar they learned
could be implemented.