Task-Based English Syllabus Design for Planning School: Feedback from the Academic and Occupational Needs. An English Syllabus Design for Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Diponegoro University, Semarang

Abstract

Teaching English for planning students is different from teaching English for English students. Planning school has certain characteristics as described in ESP that must be considered by the curriculum makers in order to create qualifying graduates. There are four research questions in this study 1) is there any problems faced by applying EAP to teach English for planning study, 2) what are the needs of academic and occupational that can be covered by a syllabus design, 3) can the Task-based syllabus design fulfill the needs?, and 4) how is the Task-Based syllabus designed to fulfill the needs of both academic and occupational? Furthermore, this research was conducted by using descriptive quantitative and qualitative method which used two kinds of sample techniques; purposive sampling and non purposive sampling. In purposive sampling, I invited the English lecturers, the curriculum makers, Head of DURP, Head of Balai PSDM Region VII Semarang, BAPPEDA Semarang (Local Planning and Development Broad), some civil servants in the Ministry of Public Works and alumni. Besides, in random sampling, I invited 92 students from the 3rd semester. This study reveals that syllabus in DURP has not covered both students‘ needs and occupational needs. On the other hands, the Task-based syllabus covers those needs in its design. Keywords: Syllabus, ESP, Task-Based, Planning School