DESIGNING ENGLISH READING MATERIALS FOR STUDENTS OF ACCOUNTING IN VOCATIONAL SCHOOL THROUGH AUTHENTICITY-CENTERED APPROACH

This study deals with the design of English reading materials for students of accounting in Vocational School through Authenticity-centered Approach. The objective of this study is to design English reading materials which are relevant to the needs of accounting students in SMK Swasta Jambi Medan. This study was conducted by applying the three phases of educational research and development (R&D). They are evaluating the existing English reading materials and assessing the students needs, designing English reading materials, and validating the new English reading materials to the experts and by using Gunning Fog Index. The data of this research are from students questionnaire, documents, and interviews of students, teacher, and stakeholders. The result of this study shows that the existing English reading materials are not relevant to the accounting students needs. Therefore, new English reading materials were designed through authenticity-centered approach in order to meet the accounting students needs. The new materials designed are from www.ehow.com in order to get the authentic materials. They are “How to Make General Ledger”, “How to Create a Balance Sheet in Excel”, and “How to Build a Profit and Loss Statement in Excel”. The new English reading materials were validated by two experts. They agreed that the new materials are relevant to the needs of accounting students. The readability of those new materials was measured by using Gunning Fog Index. The Gunning Fog Indexes of the materials respectively are 7.83, 9.13, and 6.76. Those results are interpreted as easy reading. It means, those three new English reading materials are readable for the students of accounting. In conclusion, three new English reading materials designed are relevant to the needs of accounting students. Therefore, it is suggested to the English teacher to design reading materials which are relevant to the students needs.