DEVELOPING AN ENGLISH SUPPLEMENTARY WRITING MATERIAL USING

TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR TENTH GRADE STUDENTS

Muhammad Luthfi Abdillah

University of Islam Malang
Alfaqirminrohmatillah07@gmail.com

Abstract

The data about the students’ need were collected through the use of questionnaire and
interview with the teacher. The need analysis questionnaire was close-ended
questionnaire and it consisted of 10 questions with 4 choices of answers. Based on the
result questionnaire, English was not interesting in the class and the students gave
perception that English was important to study. The importance of English and writing
activity in the class, and students want study writing by using short story. the student’s
expectation of learning writing skill was to be able to write an English text correctly. In
improving the student’s writing ability, most of students assumed that the additional
writing materials were really needed. The course grid was written based on the results of
the need analysis and the basic competence of curriculum 2013. The learning materials
development was based on the Task Based Language Teaching. The first chapter was
descriptives text which about describing people and places. The second chapter presented
narrative texts about folktales. And the third chapter discussed recount text about favorite
experience. Most of the students said that the materials of writing and vocabulary in each
task were easy to learn. Hence they felt that by using this materials book, their ability to
write in English. Because this book gave good guideline and explanation exactly in social
function, text structure, language feature. The topic in each chapter made the student was
easy to achieve the learning objective.

Keywords: Writing Material, Task-Based Language Teaching

INTRODUCTION

English surely brings number of advantages for people who mastered it because by

mastering English people can go to abroad and mastering the world. Maharani (2013) states three

main benefits in mastering English especially for Indonesian. First, English helps us connect

with people around the world easily. Sharing ideas with more people will increase our

knowledge more. Second, English helps us get a better education. People can use our English to

enroll our higher study not only inside Indonesia, but also in other countries. While the last

benefit is English eases us in pursuing a promising career. English will open our opportunity in

getting jobs wider than those who only mastering one language. These are the reasons why

learning English is very much needed. Learning English will not go smoothly without any good

English teaching method.

 Teaching English in senior high school is important for the students, because English

grows to be an important requirement for college admissions, cracking job interview and other

needs. In addition, the Indonesian ministry of national education states that English becomes one

of the compulsory subjects that is taught in senior high school. In senior high school, teaching

English focuses on four skills namely listening, speaking, reading and writing. According to the

new curriculum, which is called as curriculum 2013, learning English is supported by the

development of reading culture. Reading culture is actually related to writing culture, because

writing is a product of the reading process. Therefore, in curriculum 2013, writing skill is a

crucial skill in English mastery, since it is integrated with reading skill.

In mastering the writing skill, the students should get some instructions from the text as

the guidelines Because of those reasons; the students need materials, which are more appropriate

for them. According to Oshima and Hogue (1998) in Writing Academic English, there are three

stages of writing process for example pre-writing, planning, and writing revising draft. These

stages have to be followed to compose a good writing product. However, some of the English

course books do not provide those guidelines. In line, Bao Dat in Tomlinson (2008) states that

some course books in Indonesia have poor development of writing skills. He finds that the

students are often asked to construct sentences or short paragraphs, but there is no scaffolding to

guide them in completing the task. Furthermore, he states that many writing activities do not

have clear social function that can be applied in the students’ daily life. Thus, the students cannot

improve their writing skill, because there is no suitable writing instruction as well as writing

activity limitation in some English course books.

In the tenth grade of senior high school, the students have to compose some writing

formats such as academic writing, practical writing, and personal writing. These kinds of writing

formats are listed in Permendikbud No.69 Tahun 2013 which states that the tenth grade students

are supposed to master some writing works for example personal letter, advertisement, essay

writing and etc. Unfortunately, the students only got a simple worksheet for their writing subject.

As the researcher observed the class respond to students’ original worksheet, the

researcher found out that students got difficulties in the vocabularies, the worksheet also seems

monotonous, and writing materials on the worksheet do not vary which could decrease students’
motivation in learning. Understanding this situation, the researcher initiated to conduct research

and development study related to those original media aids in order to solve students’ problem in

learning.

In teaching writing, there are many designs of learning materials approaches. One of the

learning approach teaching task-based instructions is like Richards (2006) he states that task-

based language teaching is an approach which is based on communicative competence by using

task-based instruction emphasizes the core of developing materials by using task-based

instruction emphasizes the learning materials by using tasks as the primary unit that is used.

In developing writing materials, the application of Task Based Language Teaching

(TBLT) is the most suitable method to use, because it has appropriate principles in teaching

writing. According to Nunan (2004), the principles of Task-Based Language Teaching use a

need-approach in content selection, use some authentic texts, focus on the target language, and

use the students’ personal experience to enhance the students’ ability. The use of authentic texts

in TBLT can encourage meaningful communication. Besides, this method is also a student-

centered method in which the materials come from the students’ real world activities. To ensure

the effectiveness of TBLT development in writing materials, the outcome of TBLT is based on

the assessment at the end of the language teaching. Therefore, TBLT is applicable for developing

the writing materials, because the content of the learning materials generates its own language

and creates an opportunity for the students’ language acquisition.

DEVELOPMENT METHOD

Model of Development

The appropriate design that the researcher applied the research and development (R & D).

Borg and Gall (2003:772) stated that educational research and development was one research

design aimed at validating educational products.

Steps of Development

Material Expert
Need Analysis Validation
Development

Final Product Revision Try-Out

 Figure 3.2: The model of the research procedure in Tomlinson (1998:247)

Need Analysis

The researcher looked for as much as possible from teachers and students. Some

information which is collected by researcher was about writing task materials existence, the

problem of teacher and students in learning materials, their hope by writing materials are needed

for developing writing materials for students.

The instrument is necessary to collect data in need analysis. The instrument that used in

this step is questionnaire guide. The questionnaire is to obtain the information about students’

English writing habit, existence of English writing materials in the school, and their need about

content of materials.

The researcher distributed pieces of questionnaire to students to find the problem that

become difficulty in learning English. This activity also helped the answer to decide the problem

in learning. In this research, the researcher just identified the problem in writing skill. Based on

the result of questionnaire distributed to the students conducted with the teacher, it was found

that most of the students agreed to develop writing materials.

And also the researcher did a structured interview with the teacher. Structured interview

was an interview at which the interviewer has already made and prepared a list of question.

Interview has some advantages such as: purpose of interview was clearer and did not deviate of

the purpose; the answers were easier to note and gave code; and the data were easier to process.

Material Development

The developing of materials based on the information that was collected by all from

the analysis. Based on the students’ though that writing materials to be easy to understand,

interesting, and find any good topics for students in writing text. The researcher used task-based

instruction, because the focuses of learning are divided into three sequences namely pre task,

task cycle and language focus. Each sequence has different purpose to engage the learning

materials to the students. In development of materials, the researcher took supplementary

materials from some books and internet. Paper and multimedia based to be material classification

of the researcher.

Expert Validation

The researcher accepted the suggestion from expert and revised the product based on

expert suggestion. The expert just gave measurement rationally because the researcher who

understood factual condition in the field.

Expert validation aims to know whether the product fulfill the criteria of good

instructional materials in term of the content, language, lay-out, etc. in this research, the

researcher validated supplementary the product to one of the teacher in the school of SMA Al-

Munawwariyyah Bululawang Malang, and also one of the lecturer in UNISMA and expert of

design.

Try-Out

The researcher conducted try out to obtain feedback from the field subject. The

researcher also taught when doing tryout in order to told the objective each unit. Try out aims to

collect data about applicability of the materials. The subject of the try out was the student at tenth

grade of SMA Al-Munawwariyyah Bululawang Malang, in that class consisted of 25 students.

After try out step, the researcher needed to revise the product again to agree with real condition

of students. The try out is done by giving the students writing materials. In the last meeting, the

researcher asked students to fill the questionnaire about the materials as basis to revise. The

subject of try out was tenth grade students of SMA Al-Munawwariyyah Bululawang Malang.

Revision

The researcher revised the developing supplementary writing textbook based on the

feedback from the expert. It can help the researcher to determine the choices of questions of

layout, instruction, cover, content, communicative aspect, and general aspect of the developed

material. Based on Latief (2013:175) that data are needed and analyzed in the process of expert

validation and empirical validation. In the process of expert validation, qualitative data from
experts’ judgment were collected and used as the basis of revision of the product being

developed. In the empirical process, data were collected from students’ opinion and achievement

and were analyzed to give feedback for revision of the product.

Final Product

The final product was the last step of the development procedures. The researcher needed

to re-check the product until the researcher was confident that the product could be published

perfectly. The book aimed to improve students’ ability to write the English text using Task-

Based Language Teaching and enjoy classroom activity well. It also contained some pictures

colorfully in order that the book more interesting for students.

RESULT OF THE DEVELOPMENT

The Result of the Needs Analysis

The data about the students’ need were collected through the use of questionnaire and

interview with the teacher contained items about what writing materials of the tenth grade

students of SMA Al-Munawwariyyah Bululawang Malang. In this case, at the second semester

of SMA Al-Munawwariyyah Bululawang Malang was involved to fill the questionnaire and the

researcher did an interview with the teacher.

The need analysis questionnaire was close-ended questionnaire and it consisted of 10

questions with 4 choices of answers. The explanation was divided into two aspects; there were

the descriptions of the students’ profile and the descriptions of the students’ needs.

Based on the result, it described that English was not interesting in the class and the

students gave perception that English was important to study. It described the importance of

English and writing activity in the class, and students want study writing by using short story.

The student’s expectation of learning writing skill was to be able to write an English text

correctly. In improving the student’s writing ability, most of students assumed that the additional

writing materials were really needed. The next question aimed to know about the students’ role

in doing the tasks and aimed to obtain the students’ role in solving the problem while the

students were doing an assignment. On the other hand, there was no student do anything when

they got a problem in doing assignment.

 In English teaching and learning process, the teacher used LKS as the learning source and

used the PowerPoint as a media to help the teaching process. LKS or additional materials help

the students to improve their writing skill individually because the students can do the task at

home. The teacher also stated that the limit of time in learning English based on the curriculum

2013 obstructed the English teaching writing process.

the recently LKS was not interesting enough, because the input materials were out of date

and the tasks in LKS were not related to the their environment. The teacher expected that the

learning materials should be more interesting because the supplementary materials were done by

the students individually. The teacher also stated that the learning materials could be more

interesting if it was related to the students’ life.

In developing the writing learning materials, the teacher agreed that Task Based

facilitated the students in learning writing, because the focus of improving the writing’s skill was

doing many tasks. The teacher considered that the use of Task Based theory was appropriate in

learning writing since the steps of the method guided the students to learn from the easiest task to

the difficult ones. The teacher also assumed that the use of the Task Based theory in developing

the supplementary writing materials was a good method to help the students in improving their

writing skill.

The Developing Materials

The researcher wrote the course grid as the guideline in developing the learning materials

for writing course. The course grid was written based on the results of the need analysis and the

basic competence of curriculum 2013. The course grid used the basic competences of discriptive

texts 3.4, 4.4.1, 4.4.2, narrative texts 3.8, 4.8, and recount text 3.7, 4.7.1, 4.7.2. The learning

materials development was based on the Task Based Language Teaching.

The first chapter was descriptives text which about describing people and places. The

second chapter presented narrative texts about folktales. And the third chapter discussed recount

text about favorite experience.

The theme of the book related to the student’s daily life such as religion, Islamic figure,

and etc. it was based on the result of the need analysis that 60% of the students were interested in
their religion or Islamic figure theme for learning writing. In the chapter I, the topic described

person such as habaib, mashayikh, the students’ idol or etc. and also the text was described

places such as a well-known tourist attraction or historical buildings. In the chapter II was

narrative text such as folktale. And the chapter III was recount text the topic favorite experience

such as experience go to some where

The learning objectives of the lesson were important for the students to make them

understand about the generic structure of the language features of the descriptive text, narrative

text and recount text. After deciding the learning objectives, the indicators were listed in detail.

There were some indicators in each chapter that indicated the abilities that should be learned by

the students in every chapter.

In the learning materials, there were six sub components. They are text, content, generic

structure, social function, grammar and vocabulary. The six sub components were taken from the

basic competences of curriculum 2013 which concerns with the social function, text structure

and language features. According to Hutchinson and Walters (1987) in materials design, the

course grid should consist of some components in which each sub component has the different

function to explain the learning materials in detail. The purpose of the social function is to make

the students understand why they should learn the text and understand the moral value of the

text. The text structure is also called as generic structured which explain about every part in the

text. The language features can be divided into sub aspects such as grammar, vocabulary and etc.

which explain about the linguistic of the text.

Beside those components, there was another component such as learning activities, evaluation,

teaching kits. The learning activities were related to the technique that was used in developing

the materials based on the literature review. The next was evaluation which contained the answer

key of the writing task and the self-reflection to measure the improvement of the students’

writing skills. Teaching kits were the media that were used in doing the writing activities.

Basic Competence

Learning Materials
Le

Te
 Indicators

Structure

Function
Grammar
Chapter

Content

Generic

Vocab
Social
Text
The Expert Judgment

Point of the Unit Point to Revise Revision

Content  Add material about  The material has been
sentences and added
paragraph and give
example.
 The question of the  The question has
text should relate to changed relate to
writing. writing ability
 Give exercise that  The exercise has
support to writing supported to writing
ability. ability
 The explanation of  The explanation of
material should use material has changed
English language to English language.
Language No Revision No Revision
Presentation No Revision No Revision
Graphic No Revision No Revision

Try Out

During the tryout the researcher not only taught materials but also write everything

related to the process tryout. Before working on the unit, the researcher told about the objective

of the unit, so the students known what they master after learning the materials, then the students

were instructed to write practice, they should work with their partner.

During the process of tryout, the researcher took role as a teacher and researcher. Being a

teacher, the researcher taught the students of tenth grade of SMA Al-Munawwariyyah

Bululawang Malang. At the same time, the researcher observed the teaching and learning process

and wrote down phenomena during the process. The result of tryout showed that the students

were interested and motivated to join tryout process. They were actively involved. The students

showed their eagerness to do the task; they seemed to enjoy activities such as practicing to write,

doing task, and working with their partner, so on. When finding the unfamiliar words the
students showed their effort by asking to the researcher, discussing with friends, and looking up

the dictionary.

At the end of tryout, the researcher distributed the questionnaire to the students, and the

result of the questionnaire as follows of eighteen students stated that the layout of supplementary

materials was interesting, two students stated that are very interesting and two students stated

interesting enough. Moreover, three students expressed that the topic of the materials was

suitable with their needs.

Revisions

From the tryout, there was no significance changing for the material because most of

students liked and gave positive response to the material book that was given by researcher. They

were more interested to follow the lesson especially in writing.

Final Product

The final product was presented after doing some stages, after being validated by the

expert, the researcher revised based on comments and suggestions from the expert. Then the

researcher tried out the product and revised based on the data collected in tryout. The final

product of this study is form of the book material of English writing. It is prepared from first

semester on tenth grade of students of SMA AL-MUNAWWARIYYAH Bululawang Malang.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Conclusions

There were three chapters of the supplementary writing materials using task based

language teaching. The chapter was divided into three which contained of descriptive text,

narrative and recount which were chapter I explained about describing people and place. Then,

chapter II, it was explained about folktales and the chapter III was explains about my favorite

experience. The topic of the book was related to the Islamic figure, folktales and experience etc.

The supplementary writing materials using task based language teaching was completed

with the study guide. The study guide consisted of the explanation of each task instruction,
answer key and self-assessment. Therefore, the study guide could help the students to learn

writing materials individually. The supplementary writing materials student’s book and the study

guide had a good quality of pictures and fonts. The book was also colorful so that the book

gained the students’ motivation in learning writing.

Recommendations

How to Use the Book

As the other course book or textbook, the developing book has its own way to use the

book. The chapter was divided into three which contained of descriptive text, narrative and

recount which were chapter I explained descriptive text. Then, chapter II, it was explained

narrative text and the chapter III was explains recount text. The topic of the book was related

each chapter.

How to Develop the Book Further

1. For the English Teachers

For the English teachers, the researcher proposed three recommendations. The

first is that the teacher should provide more interesting activity to gain the students’

motivation in learning English. The second is the teacher should give homework related

to the involvement of the social media. The last is teachers should continuously conduct

need analysis because the students’ need might change.

2. For the School

For the school, it is important to do an analysis of appropriate curriculum and

syllabus toward students’ need. School need to be more selective to choose the suitable

books for students in order to make them comfort to the lesson that they achieve and

innovative activity in fulfilling the students’ needs.

3. For the Next Material Developers

The material developer should use of the technology in writing task because the

use of social media really attracts the student in learning writing.

How to Disseminate the Book

 To disseminate the book should pass some steps that meet good characteristics for

disseminating the developing book. The first step is developer should validate the developing the

book to the expert validator; whom expert in the certain area, elements that need to be validated

to the expert validator are the content of the book, the language usage of the book, the

presentation of the book and also the graphic of the book.

The next step is trying-out the product to the students whether in small scale or big scale.

Try-out product is for getting the information from the students about the product, whether its

appropriate to their needs or not. After having both validation from the expert judgment and try-

out product, developer could reduce unappropriate content and display the most important of the

content. Then the developing book might publish or disseminate to publication/marketing

section.

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