Content-Based Instruction: From
Topic-Based to Skills-Based
A. Gumawang Jati
This paper will discuss the experience of teaching reading to the undergraduate students from various departments who take English as a compulsory subject. Originally the teaching material was prepared with the assumption that the students would be happy and motivated if the material with the topic with which they were already familiar. Therefore there were a lot of versions of student’s workbooks for the students of different departments.
The teacher could only handle one class each – which was large – because of the preparation they had to make on their own. The teacher had heavy burden to construct 2 sets of tests each semester. The burden of the teacher was heavy in delivering the instruction and preparing for test, yet the result of instruction was not as expected. The departments still complained about their students’ mastery in reading. The teachers did not get the feedback whether the tests they constructed were of the same level of difficulty as those constructed by other teachers.
Based
on the research conducted, we decided to change the material, from topic-based
to skills-based. We believe that when the students master the reading skills in
this way, they are able to apply them to any topic they come across. The
advantages of the new skills-based material will be discussed as compared to
the former topic-based one and some suggestions will be made.
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Jati, A. G. (2005, March). Content-based instruction: From
topic-based to skills-based. Paper presented at LIA International
Conference,
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