47 sequencing the units is the principle of building which means one step is prepared
for another step or one step provides the foundation for another step. Fourth, determining the language and skills content of the units. The last is organizing the
content within each unit. 7
Developing materials Graves 2000, p.156 provides a list of considerations for developing
materials which is presented in table 2.7.
Table 2.7. Considerations for Material Development
Learners 1.
Make relevant ot their experience and background 2.
Make relevant to their target needs outside of class 3.
Make relevant to their affective needs Learning
4. Engage in discovery, problem solving, analysis
5. Develop specific skills and strategies
Language 6.
Target relevant aspects grammar, functions, vocabulary, etc
7. Integrate four skills of speaking, listening, reading,
and writing 8.
Useunderstand authentic texts Social context
9. Provide intercultural focus
10. Develop critical social awareness
Activity task types 11.
Aim for authentic tasks 12.
Vary roles and groupings 13.
Vary activities and purposes Materials
14. Authentic text, realia
15. Varied print, visuals, audio, etc
This will help the researcher in determining what kind of texts should be provided for college studets. The materials should also represent the goals that will be
achieved. In this study, the material development also refers to the concept that is formulated through some underlying theories.
8 Adapting a textbook
Textbooks serve not only as a learning aid or teaching tools Graves, 2000 but they provide goals, process, and materials, including the language input that
48 enhances the students lingusitics and communicative abilities. Textbooks provide
security for the students because they have syllabus as a road map of the course. Hence, the students know what to expect and how to do the process. For course
designers, adapting textbook helps them to provide set of visuals, activities, readings, etc, and to save time in developing such materials. Based on the
considerations above, the researcher can conclude that adapting textbooks can done as long as it relates to the main goals, provides supporting materials or media, and
increase students’ learning courage. 9
Designing an assessment plan Assesing learning in course design is influenced by four major purposes, they
are assessing proficiency, diagnosing ability, assessing progress, and assessing achievement Bailey, 1998, p.39. Proficiency level of the students can be assessed
in the pre or post courses. It can also be achievement assessment because the aim is to place students appropriately and check what has been learned. During the
learning process, progress assessment is better provided in order to identify and meet the students’ progress. Therefore, assessment can be designed for pre, whilst,
and post learning processes as long as it is really necessary.
5. Product Acceptability
Every designer needs to evaluate the designed course or material in order to know whether the product is effective or not. One of the ways to determine the
effectiveness of the product is measure the validity, reliability, and practicality. The validi
ty refers to “the accuracy of inferences and interpretations made from the results of an assessment” Chatterji, 2003, p.54. Meanwhile, reliabilty refers to
“the consistency of an assessment’s results under different conditions” Chatterji, PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
49 2003, p.67. Both validity and reliability are related and established to make the
designed product effective, which also means the product can be accepted. Practicality is related to the effectiveness of the product within the costs and the
time constraints. In addition to make an acceptable product, there are some considerations that will be discussed below.
a. Validity of the Product
According to Brown 2003, validity can be measured by providing the evidences of how well the learning materials determine whether the students
achieve the learning objectives or not. The evidences are also built based on some criteria which obviously support the designer to evaluate the learning materials;
those are the content, construct, and face validities. Content validity means that the objectives can be clearly defined. In other words, what is measured is clearly
represented in the learning materials. Construct validity means whether the learning materials
are appropriate to the students’ needs and based on the underlying theories. Bro
wn 2003 stated that “constructs may or may not directly measured because their verification requires inferential data”. Hence, the main points are what
competence or proficiency students need to equip with, and motivation that students have in learning the language. Face validity means the students view the learning
material as relevant and meaningful to improve their skills. The materials should be well-constructed with clear tasks and instructions. The level of difficulty is also
pondered to present reasonable challenge for the students. To sum up, those criteria will be used as the foundation to construct the questionnaires which aim to evaluate
the designed product. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
50 Furthermore, Graves 2000, p.214 proposed some questions to evaluate
learning materials. The researcher highlighted four questions that are considered important to provide an acceptable learning materials. The first question is who
evaluates the course. In informative evaluation, it is usually the teacher and students. Meanwhile, in summative evaluation, instead of the teacher and students,
the institution can conduct the evaluation as well. The second question is what aspects of the learning materials can be evaluated. Those aspects include the
learning goals or objectives, the course contents, the way the course is organized, the methods, and the learning assessment plan. The next question is how the course
is evaluated. Evaluating the course can be done through systematic observation, feedback oral or written, individual or group, questionnaires, and so on. The last
is the result of the evaluation can be utilized to improve the learning materials. Thus, if all criteria are well fulfilled, the designed learning materials will be acceptable.
b. Reliability of the Product
Reliability is related to the consistency and stability of the learning materials Brown, 2003. When the learning materials are implemented or given to the same
level of students, the result should be similar. Assuming that the learning materials are valid, the possibility is the performances would still vary across several
occasions Chatterji, 2003, p.67. This condition might be influenced by many aspects, such as the supporting media, facilities, and how long the course is
conducted. However, the output is hopefully similar under different conditions. Reliability of the product needs to be assessed in order to minimize errors
which might occur. The errors can be caused by the environment, the learners, or the materials. The examples of the errors from the environment are the noise
51 distraction and poor facilities or media. The errors of the learners are experienced
when the learners get difficulty in understanding the instructions. However, this condition has two possibilities. First, the learners have not been familiar with the
target language. Second, the difficulty is related to the materials. The errors include ambigious learning instructions, which possibly cause misunderstanding.
c. Practicality of the Product
Practicality of the product can be seen through the effectiveness of the learning program. Brown 2003, p.19 suggests that effectiveness include the time
constraints and costs to hold the program. If the learning process consumes time or money than necessary to achieve the objectives, it means the program is not
practical. The organization of activities will also determine the effectiveness since the product should be easy to administer and stay within the time-constraints. In
addition, the sequence of activities consider the difficulty level and available facilities, media, and strategy.
In this study, the validity, reliability, and practicality constitute the criteria of the acceptable product. Those criteria should be measured in order to know whether
the product is effective and efficient. If the product is effective, the learning goal can be achieved through the learning process. If the product is efficient, the learning
program is well organized and can be done in the certain period of time. Therefore, the validity, reliability, and practicality of the designed product find out how the
product will be accepted. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
52
B. Characteristics of Prospective Users
Since the prospective users of the designed learning model refer to novice level students in the university, this research focuses on adolescent learners.
Bastable and Dart 2007, p.21 stated that adolescence refers to 12-19 years of age and marks transition from childhood to adulthood. College students, especially
novice level students, belong to adolescence because most of them are around 18 years old. During the prolonged or change period of time, from teenager to adult,
they might experience turmoil. Thus, it is important to find out the characteristics of adolescent learners.
Bastable and Dart 2007, p.22 explain that in cognitive development, adolescents have attained the stage of formal operations which means that they
capable of higher-order thought, abstract thought, and complex logical reasoning. They are able to conceptualize idea, understand cause and effect, imagine
possibilities, hypothesize and apply principles of logic to situations never encountered before. This characteristic indeed influences
adolescents’ language skills in which they can conceptualize and think abstractly and gives a wide range
of teaching methods. Regarding the needs of language learning, college students should equipe themselves with performative, functional, informational, and
epistemic competences Wales, 1987, as cited in Competence Standard of Curriculum 2004 by National Education Department, 2003. It means, college
students are expected to transform knowledge in certain language. Thus, in order to achieve the competences, college students need to learn the language context, the
language features, and the four skills reading, writing, speaking, and listening. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
