6. Unit Design Development
Materials contain some units. As part of materials, a unit consists of a number of activities or tasks that will be used for learners to carry out their goals and
objectives. Nunan 2004 provides some principles of designing unit.
a. Principles of Unit Design
Nunan 2004:35 mentions seven principles of unit developments. Those principles are:
1. Scaffolding
Lesson and materials should provide supporting frameworks for learners within which the learning occurs. It is stated that the learners should not be
ask to produce language that has been introduced at the beginning of the learning. The scaffolding should not be removed too early, so that it can
scaffold the next activities in the learning process. But it cannot be maintained too long because the students need to develop the independence
required for autonomous language use. 2.
Task dependency “Within a lesson, one task should grow out of, and build upon, the ones that
have gone before”. It means that the task is exploited and built on that which has gone before. By doing so, the learners are led step by step in order to be
able to do the final pedagogical task in the sequence. There are a number of other principles within the task-dependency framework. They are receptive-
to-productive principle and reproductive-to-creative language principle. The
learners, first, spend greater proportion of time on receptive tasks listening and reading than productive tasks speaking and writing. Later, the
proportion changes into productive work. 3.
Recycling When learners are introduced to linguistics items, they will not one hundred
percent acquire the linguistics items. Hence, learners need to be reintroduced with them over a period of time. Recycling allows the learners
to meet the linguistics item in a range of different environment both linguistic and experiential. It also shows the use of linguistics items in
different context. 4.
Active learning The learners learn best through doing acting out using the language they are
learning rather than constructing their knowledge or being passive achieving knowledge transmitted by the teacher. The important point in the learning is
the learners actively do the work not the teacher. 5.
Integration Some aspect of language learning such as linguistics form, communicative
function and semantic meaning should not be taught separately. The teaching should make clear the relationship between because in effective
communication those things are essential.
6. Reproduction to creation
Learners are led to have mastery on form, meaning and function through productive tasks. Then they are provided with creative tasks in which they
are recombining elements in new ways. 7.
Reflection Learners are given opportunities to do reflection on what they have learned
and how well they are doing. Nunan 2004: 35 mentions that based on research “learners who are aware of the strategies driving their learning will
be better learners” than those are not aware of it. Those seven principles are drawn on the developed materials. Teachers or
materials developers should also determine model of unit design as a framework to organize activities within the units
b. Model of Unit Design
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