Learning materials design for higher vocational engineering students to support their ability in academic writing

Abstract

Materials for English language teaching (ELT) are mostly designed for teaching language rather than learning it. This paper outlines the English as a foreign language (EFL) learning materials development for vocational higher students particularly on writing an abstract. Research and Development (R&D) was applied to this research but simplified into four steps; needs analysis, product development, expert validation, and try-out. Overall, the learning materials design is acceptable particularly on its specification to meet the goal of learning. In addition, it is set up into e-learning which provides features of online chat letting the teachers and students have the flexibility of personal tutoring. The system is also equipped with the discussion forum as well to open the potential learning in group to discuss any problem occurring in writing an abstract. Kano method has been applied to developed the e-learning system after having functional requirement to meet the users' needs. What is more, the learning materials design seems to encourage students to confidently learn writing academic more and they could decide when they are ready to learn it any time. The findings suggest teachers to apply the designed learning materials to the real English language classroom by higher vocational engineering students. Future researchers could conduct an experiment to assess the effectiveness of the learning materials design to promote the students' achievement in their academic writing.