The Development of Context-Based English Learning Resources for Elementary Schools in Central Java

Abstract

The teaching of English as a local content subject in elementary schools in Central Java is aimed at giving students the skills to verbalize simplesentences. Students are also expected to be able to accommodate sociocultural aspects of their environments in their learning. However, some of theteachers still find it difficult to understand the place of English as a local content subject in the curriculum. Something should be done to update theteachers' abilities to cope with the curriculum, especially to develop English education instructional materials. This study focuses on five primaryobjectives: (1) to further investigate the model of teaching English as a local content subject at elementary schools in Central Java; (2) conduct a needsassessment for teaching English; (3) evaluate teachers' abilities to develop materials in English; (4) design a model of materials for teaching English; and(5) evaluate the effectiveness of the model. Two hundred English teachers from 200 elementary schools in Central Java participated in this study and wereselected using a purposive random sampling method. The study was supported through coordination efforts of the Central Java Provincial Office ofEducation. An interactive approach was used to analyze the data and help the author contact the respondents to clarify or confirm the data collected.Experimental research and expert judgments were used to test the model.