this is i serve you an English thesis, that you can download it freely. This is a classroom observation thesis. which entitle DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE UNIT DESIGN OF ENGLISH TRAINING MATERIALS FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHERS. i hope it can give some help to you..
DEVELOPING AN EFFECTIVE UNIT DESIGN
OF ENGLISH TRAINING MATERIALS FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHERS
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A. Background to the Study
It has long
been realised that most Indonesian school graduates’ English proficiency is
relatively low. Efforts need to be made to improve the graduates’ English proficiency;
otherwise Indonesia
will not be able to catch up with the development of science and technology of
advanced countries. Therefore, the
Indonesian education quality in all levels must be improved to produce
graduates who are ready to compete in the global village.
Verse 3 of Article 50 of National Educational
System Act Number 20/2003 mandates that the central government and/or the local
governments establish at least one school in each educational level to be
developed into an International
Standard School
(abbreviated ISS hereafter). The strategic plan of the Ministry of National Education in 2004-2009 also sets a
target that in each district/city (of around 440 districts) there is at least
one school in each educational level to be developed into an international
standard school. This will include the development of international standard Senior
High School, Vocational School, Junior High School, and Elementary School in
each district throughout Indonesia.
An
ISS is a school that meets all Standards of National Education, including
standards of content (curriculum), graduate’s competency, learning process,
teacher, facility, assessment, management, and budget, and is enriched with
international standards of education (Standards of National Education + X). The
international standards of education are identified through analyses on the
education practice in developed countries, members of OECD (Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development) such as USA, UK, Australia, France and
Germany, and other internationally recognized organizations such as IBO
(Directorate of Junior High School Development, 2007).
ISS teachers should
satisfy the standards of teachers’ competence comprising: (1) academic
qualification of S1 at the minimum, (2) academic background relevant to the
subject he or she teaches, (3) a teaching profession certificate relevant to
the educational level where he or she works, (4) willingness to develop
self-potential continuously, (5) ability to use ICT-based instructional media
in the teaching and learning process, and (7) ability to carry out the teaching
and learning process in English effectively, with a TOEFL score of > 500
(Directorate General of Higher Education, 2007). As a consequence, there is a
need to have teachers satisfying those qualifications.
If we look at the seventh
competence, we can see that there is hardly any mathematics and science teacher
who can satisfy the requirement. As we know, teachers of mathematics and
science in Indonesia
were not prepared to teach the subjects in English. They only got at least two
credits English subject when they studied in university, which was absolutely
inadequate to achieve the competency to carry out the teaching and learning process
in English effectively. Moreover, they are demanded to be able to master
English language skills as well as the English terms of the subjects in a
relatively short period of time. Therefore, trainings of English for mathematics
and science teachers should be given in order that they can master English in a
relatively short time to facilitate their immediate use of carrying out the teaching
and learning process of mathematics and science through English as the medium
of instructions effectively. There is a need, indeed, to provide effective training
materials for them.
B. Identification of the Problem
There are basically two things that mathematics
and science teachers should learn to be able to teach mathematics and science through
English as the medium of instructions well. Besides mastering the subject
matter in English, they also need to know how to use English in management of
classes (known as classroom English). It is no doubt that teachers of mathematics
and science have sufficient knowledge of their subject matter. However, when
they have to use English as a medium of instructions as well as to present the
materials, it could be something very demanding yet not impossible to do. The
teachers can learn English through English courses and trainings. Nevertheless,
so far, there have been a few, if any, courses and trainings which provide
effective materials which ensure that the learners can learn and master both
the subject matter and classroom English in a relatively short time effectively.
A design of effective materials of this kind then should be made.
To design and develop effective materials,
we should consider the effectiveness of many components such as effective learning
materials unit design, effective input (both oral and written input), effective
tasks (including effective listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary,
pronunciation, grammar tasks and so forth), and so on.
An effective unit of learning
materials should be designed in such a way that it can make learning easy for
the learners and ensure that the learners gain knowledge and skills of the
language. It should cover components which are expected to be learned, how the
components should be presented, and how they are graded/sequenced/integrated. Firstly,
there should be an analysis as to what mathematics and science teachers need to
learn in order to be able to teach in English. Then, the result of the analysis
will be used to design the unit of learning materials. The components in a learning
materials unit have to be graded and sequenced in such a way that it makes
learning easy and helps learning.
Effective input both oral and
written input should also be considered in developing effective materials. We
have to make sure that the input is comprehensible for the learners. Comprehensible
input claims that learners acquire the language through the process of
understanding language containing items which are only just beyond the
learner’s present competence (Krashen, 1983). They should be exposed to the
comprehensible input so that learning can take place. What kind of input the
learners perceive as being comprehensible should be identified before it is put
into the materials development.
In designing effective materials, we
should also ensure that the materials contain effective tasks. Task is any
structured language learning endeavour which has a particular objective,
appropriate content, a specified working procedure, and a range of outcomes for
those who undertake the task (Breen, 1987 in Nunan, 2004). There are four major
skills in English language teaching namely listening, speaking, reading, and
writing skills. These skills added to knowledge of vocabulary, grammar,
pronunciation, and so forth combined with the teaching of mathematics and
science subject matter have to be put in the form of tasks to help an effective
learning to occur. There should be some identification done as to what
characteristics of tasks which are effective for the learners. The result of
the identification can then be applied in designing the effective materials.
These are some things which should
become considerations in developing effective materials for mathematics and
science teachers. To the researcher’s knowledge, there has not been any
research conducted with regard to the attempt to provide effective materials
for the English teaching and learning for mathematics and science teachers.
Therefore, research in this field will hopefully be a valuable contribution for
the development of ISS in Indonesia
in general, and for ISS mathematics and science teachers in particular.
C. Limitation of the Problem
Conducting research covering things
stated previously will be a very hard and long work and therefore will not be
feasible for the researcher. Concerning the limitations that the researcher
has, she is going to conduct research focusing on the development of an
effective learning materials unit design of the materials. As the researcher
stated earlier, the learning materials unit design will deal with the
components or things that mathematics and science teachers need to learn to be
able to carry out the teaching and learning process in English. The components
then will be presented in such a way that it helps learning. Also, the
components (which are put into tasks) will be graded, ordered, and sequenced to
make learning easy for the learners to ensure that they gain language knowledge
and skills to perform their duties to plan, teach, and assess the teaching and
learning process in English. Once the effective learning materials unit design
is revealed, it can be used to develop effective English training materials for
mathematics and science teachers.
The learning materials unit design
can actually be applied for both mathematics and science teachers, but to make
it feasible for the researcher, she is going to develop the materials for mathematics
teachers from which she can identify the effective learning materials unit
design which can make the learners gain language knowledge and skills in
accordance with mathematics as the subject matter. This research therefore will
mainly discuss the development of effective learning materials unit design of
training materials of English for mathematics teachers.
D. Formulation of the Problem
By virtue of the limitation of the
problem, the researcher formulates the problems as follows:
1.
What
should be taught to mathematics teachers in order to facilitate effective
learning of English for mathematics teachers?
2.
How
should the components be graded and sequenced to make learning easy and help
learning?
3.
What
is the effective learning materials unit design of the training materials of
English for mathematics teachers like?
E. Research Objectives
Corresponding to the formulation of
the problem, the objectives of this research are:
1.
to
identify the components that should be there in a unit design of the English training
materials for mathematics teachers to facilitate effective learning.
2.
to
find out the effective tasks grading and sequence of the training materials of
English for mathematics teachers.
3.
to
develop an effective unit design of the training materials of English for mathematics
teachers.
F. Research Significance
This research is expectantly hoped
to give a valuable contribution to the following parties:
1.
To
the English Department, the researcher hopes that the result of this research study
can be an input of reference relating to materials design and development as
well as English for specific purposes.
2.
To
other researchers who wish to develop English learning materials for mathematics,
science, information technology, or other subject teachers, the result of this
research study can be a reference as to what an effective learning materials
unit design is like.
3.
To
English instructors or teachers who want to teach English to mathematics
teachers, the result of this research study can be used as a reference as to
what an effective training materials for mathematics teachers is like.
4.
To
mathematics teachers who are to teach mathematics in English, the materials developed
in this research can be used to learn how to teach mathematics in English.
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