Developing Task-Based Speaking Materials for Grade VIII Junior High School Students

Speaking materials make an important component in the teaching and learning process of speaking, but some teachers have expressed concern about the inavailability of the ready materials for the speaking class. The research and development study reported in this paper aims at responding to the concern by developing task-based speaking materials for Grade VIII SMP students. The 48 students of VIII C and D classes in SMP Negeri 3 Berbah, Sleman, Yogyakrta participated in the data collection of the needs analysis step of the research. Based on the results of the needs analysis, a course grid was written and a draft of the speaking materials was developed. The draft was then reviewed by the expert judge who was a lecturer of the English Education Department of Yogyakarta State University. The review was based on the textbook evaluation criteria published by the Book and Curriculum Center in cooperation with the Board of National Education Standard (2007). The result of the needs analysis shows that students prefer to have materials which make them active in learning, they want the teacher to be a facilitator in the class activities, while the length of each text used is no more than 250 words. Based on the result of the expert judgment, the developed materials are suitable for Grade VIII students of the junior high school. This is shown by the appropriateness of all the four aspects evaluated, i.e. content, language, presentation, and lay-out design, with a mean score of 3.56, or categorized as “Very Good.