Designing Locally Relevant Instructional Material for Indonesian EFL Classroom

Meaningful teaching and learning can be achieved when the materials are closely related to the learners' real life. This research focuses on language and culture for the materials suitable for the first semester students of EFL class at the University of Palangka Raya. The design-based research was applied to provide sources consisting of environmental linguistic expressions within the eco-linguistic perspective and using a text-based or genre-based approach by selecting suitable texts for the level. The Product of Instructional Material shows at least two benefits: (1) as the source of the main module of Intensive Course in writing skill for the first-year students of English Education in Central Kalimantan, and (2) the solution for encouraging the teachers to modify the provided material which can cover the national standard (KKNI) as well as promoting the local values to strengthen local cultures to have meaningful teaching and learning process.