Results of the Interview

1. Research and Information Collecting

In this step, some instructional design steps proposed by Kemp were employed to obtain some information as the basis to develop the instructional materials. These steps were identifying learners’ characteristics, pre-assessment, and coordinating support services. A needs survey was employed as a means of gathering the information. The survey was administered through two different types of procedures, namely conducting an interview with the English teachers of SMA Santo Bernardus Pekalongan and distributing questionnaires to the eleventh grade students of SMA Santo Bernardus pekalongan.

a. Results of the Interview

To obtain the data concerning the students’ capabilities, needs, and background knowledge from the teacher’s perspective, an interview with the two English teachers of SMA Santo Bernardus Pekalongan was conducted on 25 September 2009. The list of the interview questions can be seen in Appendix 2. The findings of the interview are presented below. 1 The time allocated for English reading class was uncertain. It was revealed that during the semester the reading class had only been conducted six times. 2 Dealing with the English competence of the students, it was found out that the students’ grammar and pronunciation competence was good. Nevertheless, according to the teachers, their reading competence was generally weak. The teachers added that only a few students had good reading competence. In fact, it was revealed that these students were frequently exposed to the English communities. 3 The teacher stated that in teaching, they still used lecturing to teach English and most of the activities still focused on the teacher. 4 Generally, the students always actively participated in the English teaching- learning activities at school. Nevertheless, the teacher also informed that if they often easily felt bored. If the teacher did not direct the students to engage in various activities, they would no longer focus on the lesson. In additions to that, in the reading class the students who had good reading competence tended to dominate the discussions. Consequently, the students who had weak reading competence felt more discouraged to participate in the discussions. It was because they felt inferior to the smart ones and felt afraid of making mistakes. 5 Based on the interview, it was revealed that individual work was the only learning strategy employed in the reading class. 6 The teacher stated that they had often heard about cooperative learning approach. Unfortunately, they still did not really understand what cooperative learning was and its application in teaching learning process. Based on the data obtained from the interview, it was concluded that reading class was not easy to carry out by most students of SMA Santo Bernardus Pekalongan. Even though they had good English language competence, their reading competence was still below average. Therefore, in order to have good reading competence, students need many deliberate and continual exposures to any kind of the texts in the target language. It means that the students need any assistance to develop their reading skills.

b. Results of the Questionnaires