1. Conducting Needs Survey
This step was done to obtain the data related to the students’ needs, interests, and lacks. The purpose of obtaining the data is to achieve realistic and relevant
designed materials for the tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta. Afterwards, the data were gathered through two instruments, namely a questionnaire
and an interview. The clear elaboration of the results of the needs survey is presented below.
a. The results of the interview
Based on the interview with a tenth-grade English teacher of SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta, the writer found some important points which were useful to consider
in designing the reading instructional materials. The first was time allocation of English lesson conducted in a week. The time allocation for English lesson was four
contact hours in a week. Within four contact hours in a week, the teacher divided the lesson into two classes. The first was reading and speaking class and the second was
reading and writing class. Meanwhile, the listening class was conducted together with TOEIC preparation program; a supplementary English lesson for the students which
was conducted for one contact hour in a week. In addition, TOEIC preparation program was intended to prepare the students in a real world communication.
According to the first point stated above, it can be concluded that the English lesson for the tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta focuses more on
reading skills. The reason is that reading, which plays a role as receptive skills, can give the students exposures so that it will trigger them to produce the target language.
In other words, reading which is possibly incorporated with any other skills like writing, speaking, or listening can give the students many opportunities in using
English such as retelling, summarizing, taking notes, discussions, etc. As a result, the students’ English proficiency level will be increased.
The second point obtained from the interview was the reading activities during the English lesson. As what had been revealed by the interviewee, the
activities that were usually carried out were not different from the common activities occurred in teaching reading. They were vocabulary building, structure analysis,
grammar exercises, discussions, getting the specific information of a text, storytelling, small presentations, and etc. Therefore, it can be concluded that the activities of
teaching reading in SMA BOPKRI I Yoygakarta especially for the tenth grade students are varied.
The third point was about the materials used in teaching of reading for tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta. It was found that the teacher often
used the reading passages taken from a certain English textbook. Furthermore, most of the reading passages were not authentic as well as the other most common English
textbooks were. Nevertheless, the teacher had ever used the reading passages about current hot issues once or twice in the whole semester to make the materials vary so
that it could broaden the students’ knowledge. The third point stated above reflects that the materials used in teaching of
reading for the tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta are not sufficient to serve the students’ needs related to their teaching learning process in their subject
matter classes which are used English as the medium to transfer the knowledge. The students are not yet accustomed to reading authentic passages due to the lack of the
use of authentic reading passages in the English lesson. As a result, the students will find difficulty to understand the learning materials used in their subject matter classes
so that they may not get success in their subject matter classes. Thus, the role of English lesson which is expected to facilitate the students to enter their subject matter
classes is not yet fulfilled. The fourth point that was found from the interview was about students’
English proficiency level. Most of the tenth grade students of SMA BOPKRI I Yogyakarta were in the intermediate level. It means that the materials should be
slightly higher than the students’ proficiency level. Lastly, it was about students’ difficulty when reading a text. Actually most
of the students had no big difficulty in understanding a text if they knew the Indonesian meanings of the words used in a text. However, as it was revealed by the
interviewee, most of them had limited vocabulary. Moreover, the topic of the text also influenced them in the text comprehension. They would not be motivated if they
faced the text which was not interested. From the last point above, it can be concluded that the words used in a text
can influence the students to understand the content of the text being read. The students will not be able to acquire the information of the text if they do not know the
Indonesian meanings of the words. In other words, the vocabulary mastery becomes a basic need in the text comprehension. Therefore, the pre-reading activity which can
guide the students to acquire the vocabulary used in the text should be conducted for the sake of students’ success in comprehending the text. For example, the students are
asked to highlight the difficult words before they read the text and then the teacher should lead them to guess the meaning of the words from its context by giving clues.
As stated above that vocabulary can influence the reading comprehension, the topic being used in a text can also become the barrier in understanding the text.
The barrier itself is that the topics are interesting for the students so that they will be unmotivated. If it happens, the process of acquiring the information from the text will
not be successful. Therefore, the selection of the text will be better if it is based on the students’ interests.
To sum up the results of the interview that have been stated above, there are four important things to consider in designing the instructional reading materials. The
first is that the activities presented in the instructional reading materials should involve integrated skills so that the students will not only develop their reading skills
but also the other skills such as listening, writing, and speaking. The second is that the reading passages used in the instructional reading materials should be authentic so
that the students will get accustomed to reading any informational contents. Besides, the students can also broaden their knowledge through the authentic texts. The third is
that there should be pre-reading activities which can guide the students to acquire the vocabulary used in the text so that the students will find it easier to understand the
text. Moreover, the activities which recall and build the students’ background
knowledge should also be involved before the students read the reading passage. The last is that the students should be involved in selecting the topics of the texts.
b. The results of the questionnaire
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