Educafl 2022. Vol 5 No 1
Doi: https://doi.org/10.21776/ub.educafl.2022.005.01.06
Needs analysis on the development of instructional material for intensive learning course
Agus Gozali Universitas Brawijaya
[email protected] Indonesia
Dani Samuel Budiawan Universitas Brawijaya [email protected]
Indonesia Ajeng Eno Pratiwi Universitas Brawijaya [email protected]
Indonesia
Article Info ABSTRACT
Article history:
Received : January 28, 2022 Revised : January 30, 2022 Accepted : January 30, 2022
Need analysis is pivotal before developing materials or syllabus.
Some studies indicated the importance of conducting a needs analysis. Although many researchers had already conducted needs analysis studies, there is a lack of proper material that can accommodate the students to learn intensive listening courses, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. This study aimed to get the information that will be beneficial to compose the material of the Intensive Listening course. One hundred and twenty sophomores were employed in a survey study to describe what their needs are related to their listening skills. A close-ended questionnaire was employed to find the students’ needs. The findings indicated that 3 important things can affect the material development process such as materials that students need, the method that the teacher used, and students’ range of proficiency.
The result implied that in the process of teaching listening and developing listening materials, the lecturer should be aware of the topics, media, and students' proficiency.
Keywords:
Listening Skill, Material Development, Needs Analysis
Corresponding Author:
Agus Gozali
Universitas Brawijaya [email protected] Indonesia
1. INTRODUCTION Needs Analysis
Needs survey becomes the first and considered as the very basic step to conduct this study as it is considered to be the most important step in developmental research. Howkey (1980, cited in Budianto, 2003) states that the needs survey is a tool for course designers. Following this statement, the importance of the needs survey focuses on its role as a starting point or a guide for
course design, syllabus design, and material selection. This step aims to find out the needs of the learners for whom the syllabus is intended. The needs analysis is conducted to obtain as much information as possible in any given situation about the learners and their purposes in acquiring the target language, about the lecturers or instructors and their expectations, about the economics and their needs in the real working world (Gozali, 2018). This also includes the identification of the communication requirements, personal needs, motivations, characteristics of the learners, and any information related to the program. In conducting needs analysis, three important aspects should be considered, they are the informants, the instruments, and the procedures of the needs survey. It can be stated that need analysis is the process of collecting the evidence and essential information before developing a syllabus or materials.
Many teachers, according to Sysoyev (2000), choose to teach resources depending on their availability. Taking materials from readily available sources is not always recommended. It has limitations at times. In her study of materials for teaching speaking obtained from Fun magazine, Fauziah (2004) discovered that the content of that magazine was limited in terms of language and materials instructions.
on proofreading activities has also been conducted by Chang et al., (2009). This study was conducted in order to find out if the learners can proofread their and others’ writing and what can be learned from such a practice. 121second graders were recruited to be the sample in this study. In this regard, the researcher employed self-peer proofreading activities in order to foster students’
awareness of errors made in their writing. The results indicated that these young writers are able to self and peer proofread their and others’ written work. Moreover, the learners also had positive views on the proofreading activities; they showed awareness of writing mechanics; they used the
‘spelling line’ strategy to express ideas; they express their peer works based on their interpretation.
The results of this study suggested that the implementation of proofreading in young EFL writing classes be prominent.
The next study was conducted by Smith (2018). He employed a survey to investigate the learners’ attitudes on proofreading activities. The learners were those who completed a one-on-one academic writing course in English at a university writing course in Japan. The learners were divided into a survey and a control group. The survey group received personalized guidance on checking their writing for mistakes, while the control group received no such feedback or guidance.
The results revealed that learners in the survey group checked their writing for mistakes with greater frequency and more satisfied with the instructor’s advice rather than the control group.
Although these previous studies on proofreading have been well-documented, a study on proofreading, especially using proofreading app, however, is still in its infancy. Proofreading, as has been well- stated by (Johnson, 1967), is often neglected in writing. Therefore, the current study attempted to investigate the learners’ attitudes towards the use of proofreading app. The difference is that the current study focused on technology-enhanced language learning (TELL), that is, the use of proofreading app for enhancing the quality of writing products. This is carried out since proofreading is perceived as majestic in the writing process. Hopefully, the findings of this study will have a significant contribution to the EFL settings.
Intensive Listening
Listening is one of the 4 main skills in English that must be mastered to learn English.
Listening comprehension is the process of understanding other people through the organs giving meaning to the messages conveyed and understanding them. This is fundamental to communicating in a social environment. (Kutlu et al., 2009). Lots of students are complaining about how difficult it is to master listening since listening does not mean they only need to 'listen' but also have to be able to understand the message and context conveyed by the speaker. In other words, listening is not only listening to other people but also understanding the message conveyed and giving the correct response with grammatical knowledge. (Yavuz et al., 2015). This is why listening skills are important in learning English. Many interpretations on how to master listening skills are being wondered by almost everyone. However, the only thing that can improve listening skills is hard work and repetition. (Kutlu et al., 2009). From another statement, (Gulec & Durmus, 2015) explained that listening will be useful in school if some prerequisites are fulfilled. These prerequisites are readiness level, attention, and teacher guidance.
Reactive, intensive, extensive, responsive, selective, and interactive listening are the six categories of listening (Brown, 1994). Reactive listening is the first. Reactive hearing is a type of listening that focuses just on the surface structure of an utterance to repeat it back. In most cases, reactive listening focuses solely on pronunciation. The following type is Intensive Listening.
Intensive listening is a type of hearing that concentrates on specific details. Intensive listening mainly focuses on short, intense listening activities that last only a few minutes. This type of listening is designed to equip students with basic listening skills to familiarize students with short oral discourses in the form of dialogue and monologues regarding social interaction in daily life both as receptive and productive skills. This course emphasizes the ability to listen to paragraph levels in short oral discourses with a focus on understanding key ideas, the ability to search for keywords, and the introduction of diverse accents from various English speakers. Extensive listening is a listening technique that allows pupils to acquire both linguistic and non-linguistic aspects of a language, such as a vocabulary and grammar. The following step is responsive listening. Responsive hearing is a type of listening that involves quick bursts of language, such as asking questions, issuing directives, seeking clarification, and so on. After that, there's selective listening. Selective listening is a listening method that emphasizes the capacity to locate specific information in lengthier segments of speech. Last but not least, there is participatory listening. The previous five styles of listening are combined in interactive listening. Students have actively participated in discussions, debates, chats, roleplays, and other group activities as part of interactive listening.
The instructor must be able to comprehend the students by doing a needs analysis when teaching listening skills. Because students face hurdles and problems in listening class, need analysis will be an important technique for teaching listening skills. According to certain research, completing a requirements analysis in a listening class was very beneficial to the teaching of listening skills. During the requirements analysis, Passakornkarn & Vibulphol (2020) discovered that students thought they lacked sufficient understanding of various accents. To support and accommodate them, the previous researcher designed resources that can help students learn diverse English accents. Furthermore, Rokhaniyah & Utama (2020) stated that during need analysis phrases, students lacked grammar knowledge, academic vocabulary, and inappropriate teaching materials or coursebooks, so they attempted to develop materials that could assist students in learning IELTS to overcome these problems.
Moreover, some studies supported that there is a need to conduct need analysis during teaching listening. Hamp-Lyson (2001) states that need analysis has a vital role in the process of designing courses, whether or not English for Academic Purposes or general English courses.
Hamra & Syatriana (2012) mentioned that through conducting need analysis, it helped the teacher to find students’ range proficiency, teaching models, and instructional materials that can help the students to improve their proficiency. Aprianto (2016) found that need analysis must be done before developing syllabus or materials; it indicated that need analysis is important because it tries to understand the students; needs. Darici (2016) also argued that need analysis is crucial for language teaching, if we cannot analyze the students’ needs, teachers’ needs, parents’ needs, and environment’s needs, we cannot produce proper materials. Learners need the best curriculum, syllabus design, approach, and best material.
This study aims to find out what ELEP students at Universitas Brawijaya (UB) needs were related to the development of Intensive Listening (IL) course material. Moreover, because of the changing curriculum, there is a lack of models of materials for the students, especially during the covid-19 pandemic. In this context, ELEP UB utilizes Outcome-Based Education (OBE) curriculum. To fulfill the gap, the researchers tried to conduct a need analysis study to ensure what the students' needs are related to their listening skills. This study is intended to reveal the students' needs for the development of instructional material for the IL course, and what type of material is suitable for the target course.
2. METHOD
This study was intended to investigate the views and the needs of the sophomore students towards the listening material based on their needs. Therefore, survey research was applicable for this study. It implied that the researchers aim to describe students’ need analysis (Creswell, 2012).
a. participants
The subjects of the study were the 120 sophomores of the ELEP. Only the views from the students were taken as the data as the syllabus is already available. The purpose of this step was to get the information of the views from the students on the material format.
b. Instruments
A questionnaire is considered to be the most common instrument used. Questionnaires are documents that ask the same questions of all individuals in the sample (Borg & Gall, 2003).
Questionnaire is chosen as the researchers would like to get the views from the students on the listening course they joined the previous semester. The result contributed to the principles of the soon-to-be-developed material. In this study, the questionnaire was given to all sophomore students as the subject of this study.not to miss the participant's stories.
c. Data Collection
To do the needs assessment, two things needed to be done. The first step was to distribute the questionnaire to ELEP sophomores. The second step is to examine the syllabus as the study's document to obtain a valuable framework of the material after synchronizing it with the questionnaire's results.
d. Data Analysis
After gathering the data, the researchers analyzed the data. To conduct data analysis, the researcher followed Ary, et al (2010). First, The researchers utilized simple statistical analysis to find the percentage of each question. Then, the researchers interpreted the result of the study.
Lastly, the researchers reported the findings.
3. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
The Result of Analysing Questionnaire from The Students Table 1. Material
Types Total Percentages
Authentic Materials 116 96.6%
Non-Authentic 4 3.4%
As stated previously, there were four variables in this questionnaire. The first is the material.
In question number one, 114 students out of 120 chose authentic material while the rest (6 students) chose non-authentic material. Considering the theme in the material, 81 students chose themes related to facts that could increase their knowledge, and 16 students chose themes related to someone they idolized (see table 1).
Table 2. Topics of Material
Types Total Percentages
Facts 81 67.5%
Idolized Theme 16 13.3%
Fiction 12 10%
History 9 7.5%
All themes 2 1.7%
While twelve students chose themes related to fiction, nine students chose themes related to events from the past that are memorable. The rest (2 students) chose all themes (see table 2). In other words, most students prefer themes related to facts that can add to their knowledge. As many as 78 students chose monologue and dialogue close to daily life, while 35 students chose monologue and dialogue that introduced new vocabularies. Six students chose both types of material, and one student chose the material that does not have to be close to daily use because
learners also need formal vocabulary (see table 3).
Table 3. Types of Tasks
Types of task Total Percentages monologue and dialogue
close to daily life 78 65%
monologue and dialogue that
introduced new vocabularies 35 29.1%
both types of materials 6 5%
Materials that need formal
vocabulary 1 0.9%
The second is the method used in the class. The teaching method that most students want is discussion. Eighty-one students stated it. Other 20 students chose lectures, nine students chose independent study, and ten other participants chose a combination of the three methods (see table 4).
Table 4. Method
Topic Total Percentages
Discussion 81 67.5%
Lecturer 20 16.7%
Independent 9 7.5%
All of them 10 8.3%
Students also think that learning tools or media need to be used in class. Thirty students stated the urgency. Seventy-nine students chose that the media is somehow required, ten chose less needed, and one decided unneeded. Teaching aids/media that are profitable and suitable for students are audio-visual aids (see table 5).
Table 5. Urgency The Use of Media The use of media Total Percentages
Urgency 30 25%
Somehow media is
required 79 65.8%
less needed 10 8.3%
unneeded 1 0.09%
Table 6. Types of Teaching Aids Table column subhead Subhead Subhead
Audiovisual 98 81.6%
LCD Projector 8 6.7%
Audio 7 5.85%
All 7 5.85%
Most students (98 students) chose audio-visual, eight chose LCD Projector, seven chose audio-only, and the rest or seven chose all props or teaching media. The type of listening activity that students like is material that can be determined by themselves and can be heard by students outside the classroom (extensive listening) (see table 6).
Table 7. Type of Listening Activity Students Like Listening activity Total Percentages
material that can be determined by
themselves 47 39.1%
student’s interest
material 40 33.3 %
direct conversation 28 23.3 %
combination 5 4.17%
Forty-seven students chose this. Forty students chose material specified by the teacher based on students' interests and listened to it in the class, 28 students decided to engage in direct conversation with the teacher or invite others to chat with students in the class, and five other students chose combination answers (see on table 7).
Table 8. During Listening
During listening Total Percentages the lecturer should
motivate students 90 34%
lecturer help students in
doing the task 16 6%
explain the instruction 89 33.7%
place the tools used in
listening 69 26.3%
According to the students, during the lesson, the lecturer should motivate the students to do the assignment by giving some instructions and letting the students think. Ninety students chose this. Sixteen students chose the lecturer to help students a lot in doing their tasks, and 89 participants chose to explain instructions, then gave assignments to students to do independently.
Sixty-nine students chose the lecturer to place the tools used in listening so that all students could listen. In contrast, 67 students chose lecturers to consider student requests if they asked for recordings to be played back. One student chose lecturers to consider student requests when students needed discussion. If previously discussed what lecturers should do, students also have several criteria about what students should do in the classroom. Ninety-two students chose to ask the lecturer if they did not understand the activity to be carried out, and 84 students would ask the lecturer to replay the recording used if they still did not understand. As many as 85 students would ask the lecturer to give some instructions to complete the assignment given, 18 students will wait for the lecturer to provide the correct answer, and the other two students will listen or do all that is mentioned above. According to most students, the use of video in listening is beneficial. Ninety students chose this option. Twenty-eight students thought that the video was helpful, one student chose less valuable, and one other participant chose that the video did not help any (see table 8).
Table 9. Students’ Ability
Students’ ability Total Percentages
intermediate 92 73.6%
beginner 22 17.6 %
advanced 6 4.8 %
combination 5 4 %
The third is about students' abilities. Most of the students' English skills were at the intermediate level, as many as 92 students. They can use English for any situation anywhere, even if they halt. Twenty-two students are at the beginner level, or they can use English to communicate very simply. The other six students are advanced, or they can use English for various situations anywhere fluently and accurately (see table 9). In addition to general English language skills, we must also pay attention to students' listening skills. 95 students out of 120 are at the intermediate level, which can understand the main points related to everyday life and pronounce them. Twenty- one students are at the beginner level where they can understand listening text which is slow, precise and has long pauses, and four students are at the advanced level, which can understand all
types of text spoken quickly.
Table 10. Students’ Difficulties in Listening Students’ difficulties Total Percentages
pronunciation 61 50.8 %
understanding new
words 26 21.6 %
catching words
correctly 24 20 %
understanding context 9 7.6 %
The last is about the difficulties faced by students in listening (see table10). As many as 61 students experienced problems because their pronunciation was too fast. Twenty-six students had trouble understanding new words, 24 students had difficulty catching words correctly, and nine students had trouble understanding context. Furthermore, as many as 43 students experienced problems because the recording was too fast. Twenty-eight students experienced difficulties because they faced new vocabularies that they did not understand. Twenty-seven students had trouble understanding the pronunciation of words, 13 students had difficulty understanding the contents of the recordings, and nine other students had challenges due to accents and the factors mentioned above.
The Result of Analysing The Document
The second needs analysis was the analysis of the documents. It is conducted to get clear direction and expectations of the course formally stated in the curriculum of ELEP-UB. It was gained from the study program itself through the explanation from the academic handbook and the specific course syllabus.
IL syllabus mentions that "This course is designed to equip students with basic listening skills to familiarize students with short oral discourses in the form of dialogue and monologues regarding social interaction in daily life both as receptive and productive skills. This course emphasizes the ability to listen to paragraph levels in short oral discourses with a focus on understanding key ideas, the ability to search for keywords, and the introduction of various accents from various English speakers". As this course is presented for the freshmen, more intensive exposure to the exercises is needed. As mentioned by Ni and Jingxia (2017), When it comes to listening teaching, the features of listening comprehension require teachers to consider more methods to stimulate students' interest and conduct students' learning.
The Task-based Approach (TBA) is the most effective method for achieving those goals. The Task-based Approach, according to Willis (1996:50), strives to provide opportunities for learners to learn language through practical experience, i.e., the use of tasks. Nunan (1989:48) provides a framework for analyzing a task's components, such as goals, input, activities, the teacher's role, the student's role, and circumstances. As a result, the Task-based Approach mainly refers to a method of organization based on action rather than language organization.
The result showed that the students' needs in Intensive listening courses are materials, methods, and students’ proficiency. The material developer should be aware of the students’ needs, such as they prefer to use authentic materials, fact topics that can help them to gain knowledge, and dialogues and monologues related to daily life as types of materials. Then, the researchers found that the way to teach that the students prefer to do, such as conducting discussion, utilizing media, using audiovisual materials, allowing students to choose their own material, and motivating the students. In addition, the researchers also found that students thought that they were intermediate- level learners, but most of them still faced difficulties related to pronunciation or accent during listening class. These findings are in line with Passakornkarn & Vibulphol (2020) who found that students lacked knowledge related to pronunciation or accent. It implied that the material developer should be aware when choosing materials because of pronunciation.
4. CONCLUSION
These findings had already demonstrated students’ needs related to listening skills. It is important because it would be a guidance for the material developer when developing an intensive listening course material. The material should consist of authentic materials, audiovisual materials, mostly discussing facts that can help students to gain their knowledge, dialogue, and monologue related to daily life. In addition, the materials should be based on CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), especially on the B1 level (intermediate level of students’
proficiency).
It is highly suggested that the findings can be used to be a guide to developing intensive listening materials because of the lack of proper listening materials that can assist and accommodate the students during learning listening. The lecturer also can use audiovisual materials and authentic materials during listening class and allow the students to choose their own materials based on their listening proficiency level.
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