IMPROVING NAUTICAL STUDENTS’ ENGLISH MASTERY THROUGH NEED ANALYSIS-BASED MATERIALS DEVELOPMENT

Abstrak

Effective communication among seafarer on board between ship to ship/ship to shore are very important in maritime industry concerning the safety at sea. Then, International Maritime Industry (IMO) adopted English as the sea language which make it become very important in this industry. Since the students of Akademi Maritim Yogyakarta are preparing to work in maritime industry they must have adequate English competence both in oral and in written form. This study aimed at developing English instructional materials for Nautical Department of Akademi Maritim Yogyakarta based on need analysis. The methodology of this study was the combination between desk and survey study which involved IMO curriculum and 26 respondents (20 cadets for questionnaires and test; 2 ex-seafarers and 4 English instructors for their evaluation on the set of English materials). The survey showed the lack of cadets’ English competency that was caused by their dislikeness of learning English. They assumed that maritime English was boring and too difficult to learn as the materials were taken from old books and publication that discusses only on reading and tenses. The result of this study shows that a set of English instructional materials which was designed based on need analysis could increase the cadets’ interest and motivation to study maritime English which then gave significant progress on the improvement of their English competence.
Keywords: nautical, instructional materials, maritime English, English competency