Designing “Good at English” as an English Conversation Book for Speaking Activities outside the Class for Grade VIII Students of the Junior High School

Abstract

The objectives of this research were: (1) to describe students’ learning needs in conversation in terms of speaking for outside class activities, and (2) to design the appropriate materials for speaking learning and teaching for outside class activities which was focused on conversation. This was a research and development (R & D) study. The subjects were Grade VIII students of SMP N 6 Yogyakarta Classes VIII-E and VIII-F that consisted of 33 male students and 35 female students. The research procedure followed the theory proposed by Jolly and Bolitho in Tomlinson (1998) with some modifications. The steps were the exploration of needs, contextual realisation, pedagogical realisation, production of the materials, evaluation of the materials, and revision of the materials. The instruments to collect the data were the needs analysis questionnaire and the expert judgment rating scale. The data from the needs analysis were analyzed quantitatively using frequency and percentage and the quantitative data obtained from the expert judgment were analyzed through descriptive statistics. Based on the results of the needs analysis, the students wanted the topics that were related to daily activities. The conversation input that students preferred was pictures/photos. The conversation book presented a lot of information and explanation. The students wanted to learn vocabulary by spelling the words correctly. The students wanted to learn pronunciation by pronouncing words, phrases, and sentences correctly. They wanted to learn grammar by practicing speaking activities by paying attention to the grammar. This study developed a conversation book for speaking for outside class activities for Grade VIII students of junior high school based on the results of the needs analysis. The book consisted of three units in which each unit consisted of subunits called preview, warm up, presentation, practice, production, record, review, and reflection. The research findings showed that the developed materials were appropriate. The mean score of the four aspects which were evaluated was 3.8. This score is in the range of 3.25≤ x≤ 4, which is categorized into “very good”.