Designing Task-Based Syllabus For Writing Class

English Education Department, UniversitasIndraprasta PGRI, Jagakarsa-Jakarta Selatan, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author:hanna.sundari@gmail.com / hanna.sundari@unindra.ac.id

Abstract

Writing is viewed as the most complex skill to learn and to teach. Beside learner factors, teacher, materials and syllabus may also affect the process of learning language as foreign language. Syllabus, in general, can be defined as a set of what is taught (content) and the way it is taught (procedure. This current research aims to design a task-based syllabus for writing class at university level. This study was conducted by qualitative descriptive design with 92 students and 4 lecturers as respondents. As part of research and development project in one private university in Jakarta, a developed task-based syllabus was based on need analysis and the principles of task-based language teaching. Students’ proficiency levels are fair with sentence patterns and grammar as the most difficult aspects. Academic writing is more preferable orientation with the small portions of creative writing. Then, the developed task-based syllabus has been proposed for writing class which covers the components of goal (learning outcome), course description and objectives, a set of writing tasks, features of content focus and language focus and course evaluation. The developed syllabus, then, can guide the lecturers in designing lesson plan and selecting materials for writing class.