B. Identification of the Problems
The English tutorial program, as a new program founded by the Center of Language Development, aims to facilitate the English learning of International
Study Program students in terms of speaking. In order to achieve the goal, some aspects should be taken into consideration, including choosing appropriate
materials to assist the students’ learning in the program. Materials for the English tutorial program that should be available are course
book, workbook, module, handout, multimedia materials and so on. According to Tomlinson 1998:ix, coursebook is a textbook which contains the core materials
for the learners in a course including work on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, function and the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking.
Workbook is different from coursebook, Workbook contains extra practice activities to work on their own time. It usually provides answer key in the book
with the intention of giving feedback to the learners. Multimedia materials can be in the form of CD-Rom. It usually contains video, audio, graphics and soon.
Handout can be defined as a document given to students that contains information about a particular subject. Module is a book containing a number of units in which
the units are derived from compilation of chapter of books or other resources. Each unit of module contains theories of a particular topic of particular subjects
and exercises related to the theories. Materials that are available for the program are coursebooks. They are created
by the tutors who are English Department students. The number of the coursebooks is as many as the number of the International Study Programs. The
coursebook used for the students of International Mathematics Education Study Program consists of eleven units. The units are divided into two contexts which
are daily life context and academic context. The first six units are included to daily life context while the rest of the units are included to
academics context. The choices of the topics in every unit of the coursebook are around those two
contexts and the major of the participants. Furthermore, each unit is enriched with multimedia materials whether they are videos or audios or videos and audios.
However, some weaknesses are found in the coursebook. Based on one of the lecturers who has reviewed the coursebook, the coursebook is not written
scientifically. It is because in the process of writing the coursebook, the writers did not apply a certain approach though the activities in the coursebook were
graded. A course needs an approach in order to maximize the aims of the course and the process of learning. Approach determines the order of what are learned by
the students and the procedures written on the syllabus. Finally, syllabus will be used as a base in developing a coursebook.
Another weakness is that it is not clearly determined the level of difficulty of the coursebook, whether it is intended to be used by beginner, intermediate or
advance level of the students. Based on the result of the interview with the students from Mathematic Education, their proficiency levels vary. They can be
categorized in three groups which are beginner level, pre-intermediate and intermediate level group. The pre-intermediate level students take as the majority
in group. Hence, they need the materials which suit their proficiency level.
Input is one of important elements in the task. Input should provide exposure which is relevant to the topic of the materials. The coursebook has some listening
inputs which discuss topics beyond the topic of the materials, though the inputs contain language functions needed by the students. Furthermore, the coursebook
do not provide evaluation task in each of the units. Evaluation task is needed in order to check the students’ understanding after learning and carrying out the
tasks in the unit. According to one of the tutors of the speaking club, it is planned to have
games in the process of teaching and learning, but the coursebook, especially the one that is intended to be used for the students of Mathematics education, has not
provided games yet in order to support the activities during the process of teaching and learning. Because of that, the tutors will use supplementary materials
to realize the plan of having games in the activities. Although, there are countless commercial coursebooks, it seems that they are
not meeting satisfactory to be used as the materials for English tutorial program. The topics and the language skills needed by the participants are specific. They
are based on the participants’ needs which are related to their majors. Although the language skills that they need can be provided by using the commercial books,
the topics needed by the participants are hardly covered by one or two commercial course books.
From the elaboration above, it can be concluded that appropriate materials are needed in
to assist the students’ learning in the process teaching and learning effectively in order to improve their speaking ability. The materials should be
relevant to on the students’ major, the students’ proficiency levels and the context
needed by the students.
C. Limitation of the Problems
Kategori