Conducting Needs Survey Research

CHAPTER 4 RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

In order to answer the first question how is a set of instructional academic writing materials designed and second question what the set of instructional materials look like, the results of the first and second survey research will be presented. The first research consisted of conducting needs survey, analyzing the data, and writing syllabus of instructional materials development are answering first question. The second research consisted of developing materials, survey study for evaluation; revising and improving the design materials are answering second questions.

A. Conducting Needs Survey Research

It was conducted through observations, questionnaires, and interviews. The interview was conducted twice for the 5 English lecturers, including instructors and native English speaking lecturers and the 75 students of Dentistry Department. The researcher has done some informal observation in the class before she conducted formal survey. The researcher found that an English curriculum resource titled “Bahasa Inggris 1” was only provided during the first semester and there was no “Bahasa Inggris 2” or similar learning material to allow further study. The researcher also found that there was no syllabus used for the class. Moreover, the methods used in the class were not helping students to improve their writing. 47 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI The researcher also conducted informal interviews, which identified difficulties in learning English with some students. Other students said that learning English was very difficult especially in the written form. The students also said that the most difficult skill in writing English was in expressing their ideas in writing. The researcher found that the students’ background study requirements were science programs at Senior High School. In their opinion studying English subject was not important during Senior High School. Now at university, the students realize that English is very important for their career. The researcher conducted class observations. There were two hundred students in one class. It was a large class for the English subject in which 150 students were new students and the rest were repeating the subject from the previous semester. The majority of the students who entered Dentistry was female, just few were male. Students currently studying Dentistry consisted of heterorganic students who traveled from all over Indonesia to study their chosen degree. To conclude, the students have different backgrounds in their English study and because they were first semester students they were also adjusting to the transition from Senior High School to University in which they would need to first adapt to their new surrounding. Most of students knew English passively, meaning that they learnt the English grammar at Senior High School but they did not know how to use the forms in a sentence when writing. They understood English as a receptive skill in which they can understand other people speaking and they can comprehend what is read but they could not utter a word in English both written and spoken. The researcher found, after doing informal observation PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI and interview that 10 students had traveled abroad; their experience in English speaking countries enabled them to become fluent with both the written and spoken forms. When the researcher conducted an observation class she found that the teaching and learning activities or teaching methods used in the class did not fulfill the students’ needs. The Dentistry students were required to study independently. It meant that most of the lecturers gave them many assignments and laboratory reports to write. Designing English academic writing tasks for the Dentistry students at Gadjah Mada University will help students to master English language. This design will guide them through academic writing. The materials in this design are taken from general academic fields rather than from areas of English grammar. This design will provide a bridge between the previous English course and the course they will take at Dentistry. The aim of this design is not to teach information relating to the field of Dentistry, but rather to teach students the English language they will need in order to study Dentistry.

B. Analyzing the Data