Instructional System Development of Essay Writing in Undergraduate English Program

As a foreign language, English Writing Instruction in Indonesian Undergraduate Programs has suffered many looses due to the lacks of systematic course design and its implementation. The absence of sounds method of teaching, authentic materials, and techniques of empowering students to cultivate the process involved in writing were assumed to cause students’ low achievement in expository writing. These and other related pedagogical issues raised several questions such as: 1). What kind of Instruction was appropriate for EFL Teaching and Learning to write in Undergraduate English program?; 2). What was the validity of the Instruction being developed?; 3). What was the practicality of such an instruction?; and 4) What was the effectiveness of the instruction? To answer such the questions, a research and development was conducted
by using systematic approach under the steps and procedures promoted by Dick and Carey (1996) including designing, developing, evaluating, and revising. The Elements of the model consists of ten major components (nine basic steps in an iterative cycle and a culminating evaluation of the effectiveness of the instruction) beginning from determining instructional goal, analyzing the instructional goal, analyzing learners and context, writing performance objectives, developing assessment instruments, developing instructional strategy, developing and selecting instruction, designing and conducting formative evaluation, and end up with revising instruction. The design model was tried-out to a limited number of students at State Islamic University, Imam Bonjol of Padang, West Sumatra, to determine the validity, practicality, and effectiveness of the model. The results of the study were in the form of interrelationships among the elements of instruction such as goals and purposes, materials, instructional strategies, and system of evaluation. The unity of these elements were claimed to be the products of the research and they were relevant to the current National Curriculum Framework. The Instructional strategy was revealed in the learning stages which comprised building knowledge and modeling of text, joint construction, independent construction, and peer review. Meanwhile, the Instructional materials showed the students the stages, process, and topics to be written, as well as formats of peer-review and evaluation of products. The dissemination of the products showed that the average score for the designed instruction was very valid (4.66). The validity of Teacher’s Guidebook was 4.66, while the validity of Students’ Guidebook was 3.04. The practicality of this instructional design was 4.86 with the ideal percentage of 97 percents, and the product was 4.86 with the ideal percentage of 97 percents. The students’
learning activity and interests were found to be effective (4.56) and very effective (5.00) with the ideal percentage of 100 percents.