ENGLISH FOR STUDENTS MAJORING IN INFORMATICS.
ABSTRACT
Kbairani Lubis, Fauziah. 2005. English Readings for Students Majoring in
Informatics. Tbesist Applied Linguistic State University ofMedan.
An ESP course brings the idea of enabling students to function effectively in the
target situations as it aims at specifying what exactly the needs of the learners in
studying English. Thus a course designer is required to contribute his/her skill to
design a specific syllabus and materials for the specific purpose of learning English.
And this is likely to give an optimal result to achieve the learning goal. However, it is
true that due to the lack of the understanding on needs analysis, the optimal result is
still far to be reached. Related to the study the ditnculty in choosing suitable
materials for the teaching is the result of one's being lack of understanding towards
needs analysis.
This research is conducted by administering questionnaires as well as
interviewing the subjects dealing with informatics.
The findings of the research show that students need reading materials in their
study. For the reason that many textbooks on informatics are written in English. Thus
the students need English for the purpose of understanding reading materials. And the
techniques of reading becomes the second concern of this study. Needles to say that a
good technique will be fruitful. It is obviously mentioned in this research that wordfor word translation applied to the students has caused misinterpretations.
ABSTRAK
Khairani Lu his, Fauziah. 2005. English Readings for Students Majoring in
Informatics. Thesis, Applied Linguistics, State University of Medan.
Ide dari English for Specific Purpose adalah agar siswa dapat berfungsi secara cfektif
sesuai dengan situnsi dan kondisi dimana mereka beketja scjalan dengan tujuan ESP
itu sendiri yaitu untuk merinci apa yang sesungguhnya dibutuh.kan s i~wa
dalam
mempelajari Bahasa Inggris. Oleh karcna itu seorang perancang peJajardll diharapkan
dapat menyumbangkan keahliannya dalam merancang silabus dan matcri yang rinci
atau khusus sesuai k.ebutuhan. Hal ini sangat memungkinkan tercapainya hasH yang
optimal yaitu rnencapai tujuan belajar. Namun dikarenak.an oleh kurangnya
pemahaman terhadap kegunaan melakukan analisa kebutuhan, basil yang optimal
akan sulit tercapai. Dalam penelitian ini diungkapkan bahwa kcsulitan dalam memilih
bahan-bahan pelajaran yang sesuai dengan kebutuhan siswa itu sendiri adalah ha.c;il
dari ketidakpahaman akan kegunaan analisa kebutuhan.
Penelitian ini difokusk.an pada pemilihan bahan pelajaran yang sesuai untuk
siswa kelas infonnatika. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan membagikan kuesioner
kepada subjek penelitian serta mewawancarai mereka.
Hasil dari penelitian ini mcnunjukkan bahwa siswa kelas informatika
membutuhkan bahan-bahan bacaan atau teks-teks dalam pclajaran mereka karena
banyak buku mengenai informatika berber:tuk bacaan/tek.s-teks berbahasa Inggris.
Jadi siswa-siswa kelas informati.ka membutuhkan bahasa Inggris untuk memaharni
bahan-bahan bacaan. Teknik membaca menjadi masalah kedua dalam penelitian ini
karena teknik yang bagus akan membuahkan pemahaman yang bagus puJa. Disin.i
disebutkan juga bahwa teknik peneJjemahan kata perkata yang diaplikasikan kepada
siswa-siswa menyebabkan kesalahpahaman makna.
ll
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pa~c
ABSTRACT
ABSTRAK ...........................................................................................................
11
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..................................................................................
111
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................
v
LIST OF TABLE.................................................................................................
Vll
LIST OF APPENDIX ...................................................................................... ._..
viii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background ....................................................................... .
z
CHAPTER II
1.2 Research Problem .................. ............. ................ ... .. ... .. ... ..
2
1.3 Objective ofthe Study....................................................... .
2
1.4 Scope of the Study ............................................................ .
3
1.5 Significance of the Study .................................................. .
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 The ESP and Language Descriptions ............................... ..
2.1.1
ESP ....................................................................... ..
2.1.2
Need Analysis ...................................................... ..
2.1.2.1 What are Target Needs..............................
8
2.1.2.2 How to Get Information About
TargetNceds?............................................
v
9
2.1.3
Langu~
2.1.4
Learning Theories..................................................
11
2.1.5
Approaches to Course Design................................
13
2.1.7 Material Design......................................................
18
2.1.8 Materials Evaluations.............................................
23
2.2 V ariet~s
Descripton~.
..
9
of Language .. ..... ...... ... . ...... ..... ...... ... .. .... . .. .... . .....
27
Varieties Associated with Purpose........................ .
28
2.3 The Nature of Informatics ................................................. .
28
2.4 Reading ............................................................................. .
30
2.2.1
2.4.1
Process in Reading ................................................ .
32
2.4.1.1 Word Recognition .................................... ..
32
2.4.1.2 Syntactic Processing ................................ ..
33
2.4.1.3 Semantic Processing ................................ ..
33
2.5 Levels of Comprehension ................................................. .
34
2.6 Models of Reading ............................................................
35
2.6.1
Bottom- Up Model...............................................
36
2.6.2
Top-Down Model .................... :.............................
38
2.6.3
lnteractive Model ..................................................
40
CHAPTER Ill METHOD OF RESEARCH
3.2 Population and Sample ..................................... ................
VI
42
3.3 Instruments of Data Collecting..........................................
42
3.4 Technique in Analyzing Data ........................ ...................
43
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEACII FINDINGS...............
44
4.1 Data Analysis .... .. .... . .. . ... .............. ...... ..... .. .... .. .. . ... ... .. ........
44
46
46
58
4.3 Material production and instructional design................... ..
4.3.1 Material Production ................................................ .
4.3.2
CHAPTER V
es1gn .................................................
4.3.3 Instructional Design ................................................ .
56
4.3.4 Syllabus ................................................................... .
57
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS .............................. ..
59
5.1 Conclusions ...................................................................... ..
59
5.2 Suggestions ........................................................................
60
REFERENCES
61
APPENDIX
vu
~
~
c
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 4.1
The Students, Target Need of Language Skills ................ .
45
Table 4.2
Students' Lack ...................................................................
47
Table 4.3
Students' Prefence of Teaching Methodology ..................
48
~
~
~
Cl
z
~
~
m
.b
m
&,,
Vlll
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
APPENDIX I
Needs Analysis Que-stionnaire ........... .. ........... ..... ............
64
APPENDIX ll
Interviews ·
· · · · .. ···············--···········--····......
71
APPENDIX Ill
Interview With Students ...................................................
72
APPENDIX IV
Interview With Employees .......... ....................... ..............
73
APPENDIX V
The English Background of Respondents (STIE IBBI)....
74
APPENDIX VI
The English Background of Respondents ( Primeone.Staft) 75
APPENDIX VII
The Material, Methodology of Teaching and
~- ~ ·
Teachers' Ability .............................................................. .
APPENDIX VIll
Motivation Towards English ........................................... .
APPENDIX JX
Skills to Improve ............................................................. .
APPENDIX X
Mode of Learning..............................................................
APPENDIX XI
Target Situation Analysis ................................................ ..
80
APPENDIX XU
Students Age ( N 30) ..................................................... ..
82
APPENDIX XIII
Text 1 :What is an Information System ........................ ..
83
APPENDIX XIV:
Text 2: Electronic Commerce ......................................... .
85
APPENDIX XV
Text 3 : A Computer- Based Information System CB 15.
87
APPENDIX XVI
Text 4 : Telecommurucations. Networks and the Internet
89
APPENDIX XVII:
Text 5: Data Versus Information .................................... .
91
APPENDIX XVIII
Authentic Materials ......................................................... .
93
APPENDIX XIV
Curriculum Vitae ............................................................ ..
101
ix
Cl
CH
Al~
TE
R
I
iNTRO DUCTION
NIILIK PERPusrAWr-
l.l. Background
UNJMED
-- .
As a means of communication, English has been one of the prestigious
languages used tor many years almost all over the world. It has been accepted as the
international language oftechnology and commerce. Thus more and more people are
motivated to learn English, and in its development. English is learnt for different
purposes which is especially based on the field of one's work. For this reason, we
have learners who leam Business English, Medical English, Technical English, etc.
This is what we call as ESP (English for S pecific Purposes).
ESP is based on needs analysis which is aimed at specifying what exactly the
needs of the student.""' in studying English. In order to meet the learners' needs, a
comse designer is required to contribute his skill to design a specific syllabus and
materials for the specific purpose of learning English. This is likely to give an
optimal result to achieve the learning goaL
'This thesis discusses English for a specific purpose especially tlle materials
for informatics students due to the fact that, based on the writer's observation,
English lectures teaching in informatics find difficulty in choosing materials because
they do not quite understand the needs of their students in learning English.
Consequently the teaching is focused on the linguistic forms.
C
Therefore she
con~ms
with the materials especially reading materials. The
reason is that many textbooks on infonnatics are wrillen in English. Thus lhc students
of informatics need English for the purpose of understanding read ing materials.
Furthermore in understanding the
r~d
i n gmat
e rial
~
one has to know the steps.
Related to this, based on the data she obtained, in order to get the students
comprehension in reading, the lecturers mainly gave all the meaning of the words
found in the t.exts to the studenls. l.>ue to this, reading comprehension tends to
qe
more like a word for word translation which might lead to misWidcrstanding. Thus
she also concerns with the betterment of the reading comprehension. Other skills of
language such as speaking and writing are not neglected to support their needs of
English.
1.2 Research Problems
Related to this study, the problems arc formulated as follows:
1. What reading materials do the students of infonnatics need?
2. What reading techniques do the students of informatics need?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The purposes of this study are : 1) to find out the appropriate reading
materials the students of informatics need, 2) to fmd out the appropriate reading
techniques the students of informatics need.
2
1.4 Scope of the Study
The present study is aimed at developing ESP materials as well as reading
techniques for the first year-students oflnformatics in order to put a stronger ba
Kbairani Lubis, Fauziah. 2005. English Readings for Students Majoring in
Informatics. Tbesist Applied Linguistic State University ofMedan.
An ESP course brings the idea of enabling students to function effectively in the
target situations as it aims at specifying what exactly the needs of the learners in
studying English. Thus a course designer is required to contribute his/her skill to
design a specific syllabus and materials for the specific purpose of learning English.
And this is likely to give an optimal result to achieve the learning goal. However, it is
true that due to the lack of the understanding on needs analysis, the optimal result is
still far to be reached. Related to the study the ditnculty in choosing suitable
materials for the teaching is the result of one's being lack of understanding towards
needs analysis.
This research is conducted by administering questionnaires as well as
interviewing the subjects dealing with informatics.
The findings of the research show that students need reading materials in their
study. For the reason that many textbooks on informatics are written in English. Thus
the students need English for the purpose of understanding reading materials. And the
techniques of reading becomes the second concern of this study. Needles to say that a
good technique will be fruitful. It is obviously mentioned in this research that wordfor word translation applied to the students has caused misinterpretations.
ABSTRAK
Khairani Lu his, Fauziah. 2005. English Readings for Students Majoring in
Informatics. Thesis, Applied Linguistics, State University of Medan.
Ide dari English for Specific Purpose adalah agar siswa dapat berfungsi secara cfektif
sesuai dengan situnsi dan kondisi dimana mereka beketja scjalan dengan tujuan ESP
itu sendiri yaitu untuk merinci apa yang sesungguhnya dibutuh.kan s i~wa
dalam
mempelajari Bahasa Inggris. Oleh karcna itu seorang perancang peJajardll diharapkan
dapat menyumbangkan keahliannya dalam merancang silabus dan matcri yang rinci
atau khusus sesuai k.ebutuhan. Hal ini sangat memungkinkan tercapainya hasH yang
optimal yaitu rnencapai tujuan belajar. Namun dikarenak.an oleh kurangnya
pemahaman terhadap kegunaan melakukan analisa kebutuhan, basil yang optimal
akan sulit tercapai. Dalam penelitian ini diungkapkan bahwa kcsulitan dalam memilih
bahan-bahan pelajaran yang sesuai dengan kebutuhan siswa itu sendiri adalah ha.c;il
dari ketidakpahaman akan kegunaan analisa kebutuhan.
Penelitian ini difokusk.an pada pemilihan bahan pelajaran yang sesuai untuk
siswa kelas infonnatika. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan membagikan kuesioner
kepada subjek penelitian serta mewawancarai mereka.
Hasil dari penelitian ini mcnunjukkan bahwa siswa kelas informatika
membutuhkan bahan-bahan bacaan atau teks-teks dalam pclajaran mereka karena
banyak buku mengenai informatika berber:tuk bacaan/tek.s-teks berbahasa Inggris.
Jadi siswa-siswa kelas informati.ka membutuhkan bahasa Inggris untuk memaharni
bahan-bahan bacaan. Teknik membaca menjadi masalah kedua dalam penelitian ini
karena teknik yang bagus akan membuahkan pemahaman yang bagus puJa. Disin.i
disebutkan juga bahwa teknik peneJjemahan kata perkata yang diaplikasikan kepada
siswa-siswa menyebabkan kesalahpahaman makna.
ll
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pa~c
ABSTRACT
ABSTRAK ...........................................................................................................
11
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..................................................................................
111
TABLE OF CONTENTS....................................................................................
v
LIST OF TABLE.................................................................................................
Vll
LIST OF APPENDIX ...................................................................................... ._..
viii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background ....................................................................... .
z
CHAPTER II
1.2 Research Problem .................. ............. ................ ... .. ... .. ... ..
2
1.3 Objective ofthe Study....................................................... .
2
1.4 Scope of the Study ............................................................ .
3
1.5 Significance of the Study .................................................. .
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
2.1 The ESP and Language Descriptions ............................... ..
2.1.1
ESP ....................................................................... ..
2.1.2
Need Analysis ...................................................... ..
2.1.2.1 What are Target Needs..............................
8
2.1.2.2 How to Get Information About
TargetNceds?............................................
v
9
2.1.3
Langu~
2.1.4
Learning Theories..................................................
11
2.1.5
Approaches to Course Design................................
13
2.1.7 Material Design......................................................
18
2.1.8 Materials Evaluations.............................................
23
2.2 V ariet~s
Descripton~.
..
9
of Language .. ..... ...... ... . ...... ..... ...... ... .. .... . .. .... . .....
27
Varieties Associated with Purpose........................ .
28
2.3 The Nature of Informatics ................................................. .
28
2.4 Reading ............................................................................. .
30
2.2.1
2.4.1
Process in Reading ................................................ .
32
2.4.1.1 Word Recognition .................................... ..
32
2.4.1.2 Syntactic Processing ................................ ..
33
2.4.1.3 Semantic Processing ................................ ..
33
2.5 Levels of Comprehension ................................................. .
34
2.6 Models of Reading ............................................................
35
2.6.1
Bottom- Up Model...............................................
36
2.6.2
Top-Down Model .................... :.............................
38
2.6.3
lnteractive Model ..................................................
40
CHAPTER Ill METHOD OF RESEARCH
3.2 Population and Sample ..................................... ................
VI
42
3.3 Instruments of Data Collecting..........................................
42
3.4 Technique in Analyzing Data ........................ ...................
43
CHAPTER IV DATA ANALYSIS AND RESEACII FINDINGS...............
44
4.1 Data Analysis .... .. .... . .. . ... .............. ...... ..... .. .... .. .. . ... ... .. ........
44
46
46
58
4.3 Material production and instructional design................... ..
4.3.1 Material Production ................................................ .
4.3.2
CHAPTER V
es1gn .................................................
4.3.3 Instructional Design ................................................ .
56
4.3.4 Syllabus ................................................................... .
57
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS .............................. ..
59
5.1 Conclusions ...................................................................... ..
59
5.2 Suggestions ........................................................................
60
REFERENCES
61
APPENDIX
vu
~
~
c
LIST OF TABLES
Pages
Table 4.1
The Students, Target Need of Language Skills ................ .
45
Table 4.2
Students' Lack ...................................................................
47
Table 4.3
Students' Prefence of Teaching Methodology ..................
48
~
~
~
Cl
z
~
~
m
.b
m
&,,
Vlll
LIST OF APPENDICES
Pages
APPENDIX I
Needs Analysis Que-stionnaire ........... .. ........... ..... ............
64
APPENDIX ll
Interviews ·
· · · · .. ···············--···········--····......
71
APPENDIX Ill
Interview With Students ...................................................
72
APPENDIX IV
Interview With Employees .......... ....................... ..............
73
APPENDIX V
The English Background of Respondents (STIE IBBI)....
74
APPENDIX VI
The English Background of Respondents ( Primeone.Staft) 75
APPENDIX VII
The Material, Methodology of Teaching and
~- ~ ·
Teachers' Ability .............................................................. .
APPENDIX VIll
Motivation Towards English ........................................... .
APPENDIX JX
Skills to Improve ............................................................. .
APPENDIX X
Mode of Learning..............................................................
APPENDIX XI
Target Situation Analysis ................................................ ..
80
APPENDIX XU
Students Age ( N 30) ..................................................... ..
82
APPENDIX XIII
Text 1 :What is an Information System ........................ ..
83
APPENDIX XIV:
Text 2: Electronic Commerce ......................................... .
85
APPENDIX XV
Text 3 : A Computer- Based Information System CB 15.
87
APPENDIX XVI
Text 4 : Telecommurucations. Networks and the Internet
89
APPENDIX XVII:
Text 5: Data Versus Information .................................... .
91
APPENDIX XVIII
Authentic Materials ......................................................... .
93
APPENDIX XIV
Curriculum Vitae ............................................................ ..
101
ix
Cl
CH
Al~
TE
R
I
iNTRO DUCTION
NIILIK PERPusrAWr-
l.l. Background
UNJMED
-- .
As a means of communication, English has been one of the prestigious
languages used tor many years almost all over the world. It has been accepted as the
international language oftechnology and commerce. Thus more and more people are
motivated to learn English, and in its development. English is learnt for different
purposes which is especially based on the field of one's work. For this reason, we
have learners who leam Business English, Medical English, Technical English, etc.
This is what we call as ESP (English for S pecific Purposes).
ESP is based on needs analysis which is aimed at specifying what exactly the
needs of the student.""' in studying English. In order to meet the learners' needs, a
comse designer is required to contribute his skill to design a specific syllabus and
materials for the specific purpose of learning English. This is likely to give an
optimal result to achieve the learning goaL
'This thesis discusses English for a specific purpose especially tlle materials
for informatics students due to the fact that, based on the writer's observation,
English lectures teaching in informatics find difficulty in choosing materials because
they do not quite understand the needs of their students in learning English.
Consequently the teaching is focused on the linguistic forms.
C
Therefore she
con~ms
with the materials especially reading materials. The
reason is that many textbooks on infonnatics are wrillen in English. Thus lhc students
of informatics need English for the purpose of understanding read ing materials.
Furthermore in understanding the
r~d
i n gmat
e rial
~
one has to know the steps.
Related to this, based on the data she obtained, in order to get the students
comprehension in reading, the lecturers mainly gave all the meaning of the words
found in the t.exts to the studenls. l.>ue to this, reading comprehension tends to
qe
more like a word for word translation which might lead to misWidcrstanding. Thus
she also concerns with the betterment of the reading comprehension. Other skills of
language such as speaking and writing are not neglected to support their needs of
English.
1.2 Research Problems
Related to this study, the problems arc formulated as follows:
1. What reading materials do the students of infonnatics need?
2. What reading techniques do the students of informatics need?
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The purposes of this study are : 1) to find out the appropriate reading
materials the students of informatics need, 2) to fmd out the appropriate reading
techniques the students of informatics need.
2
1.4 Scope of the Study
The present study is aimed at developing ESP materials as well as reading
techniques for the first year-students oflnformatics in order to put a stronger ba