Development of english language materials for IT students: a content based instruction approach

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to develop a sample of English language materials within the Content-Based Instruction Approach for Information newlineTechnology students at the Diploma level in Vocational Education. The study was carried out in two major phases: materials construction and materials evaluation. To construct the materials, it entailed the researcher to collect different types of information: language syllabus for IT programme, students needs and interests, their language ability and course content for IT students. At this stage, the instruments used for data collection consisted of a questionnaire for needs and interests assessment, language proficiency test and an interview with IT students to gain a deep understanding about their background knowledge and some ideas for topic selection. The results of data analysis were used as a basis for materials construction. Subsequently, three units of thirteen CBI tasks lasting twenty hours were constructed. They consisted of both 60- and 120-minute tasks. To seek the effectiveness of the constructed materials, they were evaluated by external evaluators. It was found that the materials were very effective in terms of objectives, content authenticity, content as a source of language learning, task sequencing, coherence of tasks and effectiveness in terms of their methodology. To validate their effectiveness in the actual classroom, a process-oriented approach was adopted for materials evaluation. The pilot study took place in the second semester of 2009. It involved trialling two main tasks of Units 1 and 2: Network topology and Surfing the Net to obtain information regarding how well the materials worked in class, how the students felt about the tasks in terms of their difficulty and interest and what modifications they needed. Some modifications were made according to information suggested by the pilot study. The main study took place in the following year, the second semester of 2010 with a new batch of 33 first-year IT students