STUDENTS’ NEEDS IN ENGLISH TEACHING MATERIALS FOR KINDERGARTEN STUDENTS

The aim of this study was to investigate the students‟ actual foreign language needs, namely : first, personal needs which focus on their personal information and second, learning needs covers five points, to be exact: learning attitude, learning preferences regarding activities, teaching media and topics in the EFL classroom, the gap between the target level and the present level of proficiency. A descriptive survey research design was used in this study. A set of smiley questionnaire were collected from for 113 kindergarteners from six kindergartens in Pringsewu District, Lampung Province, Indonesia. Furthermore, interviews with six homeroom teachers and six principals were conducted to get deeper data. Based on the results of needs analysis it is found that there are seven criteria should be considered by teachers or materials developers to develop the materials, namely 1) The materials should be appropriate to be used by the kindergarten students who are at the age of 6-7 years old; 2) The materials should not consist of the text and task that raise conflict of ethnic, religion, race, and inter-group relation; 3) The materials should contain the topics which they familiar with; 4) The materials should be appropriate to be used by the students that have limited vocabulary; 5) The materials should support students to increase their speaking skill step by step; 6) The materials should facilitate the students to use the language by using fun teaching techniques, such as playing games, singing, storytelling, role-play, etc.; 7) The materials should be completed with various teaching media, such as; puppets, flash cards, posters.


Introduction
One of a crucial element in most language programs is teaching materials (Richard, 2001). Learners receive language input and activities in the classroom mostly from teaching materials that delivered in the form of commercial textbook, materials prepared by institution or materials designed independently by teachers. Even materials "can act as teacher education" (Timmis, 2015) in the case of providing ideas for inexperienced teachers on how to plan and prepare lessons. Besides, materials not only give teachers guidance but also give them more confidence to play their role in the class (Cunningsworth, 1995). As well as teaching English for young learners requires teaching materials that fulfil at least four criteria as suggested by Tomlinson (2005). First, materials for children should make use of young children"s stories, songs, poems, and rhymes to language in use. It is because literature provides entertainment (McMillan, 2003), rich and authentic uses of the foreign language (Cameron, 2003).
Second, materials for children should provide a lot of language linked kinaesthetic activity through drama, games, and TPR because children learn through physical experience or in other words young learners conduct learning by doing (Halliwell, 1992;Girard et al., 2003;Musthafa, 2008;Suyanto, 2008). According to Harmer (2008, p.82) children can understand the lesson from what they see, touch and interact with not just from explanation. That is why the materials for children should make them doing something while learning at the same time.
Third, materials for children should focus more on meaning than form, young learners learn best when learning is kept as a whole (Halliwell, 1992;Musthafa, 2008). It means that very young children are able to understand what is being said to them even before they understand the individual words because they grasp the meaning not only by words or phrase but also from intonation, gesture, facial expression, action and circumstances.
It is in line with Suyanto (2008) who argues that children find it difficult when the language is broken down into pieces (e.g., words, phrases, sentences, and paragraph as analytical unit).
Forth, materials for young learners should focus more on informal implicit learning than formal explicit teaching (Tomlinson, 2005, p.9). Materials for young learners should not discuss about the language or linguistics matter but should provide example how the language is use so that they can learn from the model from the materials (Cameron, 2001).
However, no materials can be perfect for any teaching and learning situation. Needs analysis is important to develop learning materials which will meet the learning needs of a particular of group of students (Brown,1995). In addition, most writers on the process of materials development focus on needs analysis as their starting point (Tomlinson, 2013). The studies that investigate the adult students" needs in learning English have been conducted by researchers (Borougeni and Fard, 2013;Cunningham, 2015;Hidayat, 2018;Moiinvaziri, 2014;Ulum, 2015). There have been comparatively few studies that investigate the young learners" need in learning English. Accordingly this study fills the gap in terms of needs analysis of English language learning in young learners" classroom. The aim of this study is to find out the kindergarten students needs in learning English in kindergarten context which latter the result of this tudy will be used as the source of information to develop the teaching materials which will meet the students needs

Needs Analysis
Needs analysis for language teaching was initiated in the 1970s through the ESP movement (Richard, 2001). There are now several studies focusing on needs analysis, particularly in the context of ESP. (Boroujeni and Fard, 2013;Albakrawi, 2013;Liao, 2009;Solak, 2012). However, needs analysis to investigate what actually needed by young learners who learn English as a foreign language are rarely researched.
Needs analysis are defined variously by some expert. It can be defined simply as "procedures used to collect information about learners" needs" (Richard,200,p.51).
Needs analysis can also be identified as needs assessment which is defined by Richards, Platt, andWeber (1985 in Brown, 1995) as the process of determining a language and arranging it based on priority for a learner or group of learners. The other definition state that needs analysis is "a device to know the learners" necessities, needs, and lacks in order to develop courses that have a reasonable content for exploitation in the classroom" (Huchinson and Waters, 1987). Therefore, needs analysis is a method to recognize and establish relevant curriculum or program and learning goals that are closely related to the student's necessities and situations.
The first step in conducting needs analysis is determining the purpose or purposes of an English program (Richard, 2010). For example: in field such as tourism the learners need to know and practice the language use in a restaurant to request food and drinks or in a hotel to make a reservation. In the case of young learners, in kindergarten or primary school, their needs have been decided for them by considering their needs in the next level of education. Needs are often described in terms of a linguistic deficiency, that is, as describing the difference between what a learner can presently do in a language and what he or she should be able to do.
According to Richard (2001)  Needs can also be classified into the learners" needs, the teachers" needs and the administrators" needs (Masuhara, 1998). It is noticeable that the three kinds of needs are not entirely the same. There is certain gap between each other. The learners" needs are independent of teachers and can not be satisfied or taught by teachers. And the learners would not appreciate the teachers" needs. What"s more, Masuhara is aware that the learners" needs maybe do not really reflect the learner" real needs. Further study is needed on how to balance the three needs. Such classification is made from the perspectives of different subjects.
This study focus on learners" need which is devided into two kinds: (1) personal needs that consist of age, sex, cultural background, interest, educational bankground; and (2) Learning needs which consist of learning attitude, language preferences regarding activities, teaching media and topics, and the target level and the present level of students speaking proficiency.

Speaking Activities for Young Learners
Most young learners correlate learning the second or foreign language with learning to speak it (Girard et al., 2003). Young learners should not be forced to be competent communicators because they also still learn it in their first language ( Pinter, 2006;Linse, 2005). The teacher needs to set the learning goal which is achievable, that is not beyond the skill mastered by native language speakers. Besides, teacher should provide the teaching materials and activities that can develop their speaking skill. In this study, the needs analysis of students learning nead in terms of gap between the target level and the present level will focus on students speaking performance.
At least there are four kinds of speaking performances that can be carried out by students (Cameron, 2001), to be exact: naming objects, producing single word or phrase as response, producing simple sentences, and getting involved in a dialog. According to Brown (2001) such kinds of speaking performance of the students rely on the teacher"s role in selecting the types of speaking activities that the students should do.

Naming Objects
Naming objects usually can be produced by young learners at the initial stage of learning (Girard et al., 2003). Additionally, Cameron (2001) states that the simplest activity the teacher can do in enabling students to mention object names is by holding up the picture and the young learners say the object names on the picture. Further, she puts forward that the teacher can teach the students to name objects by asking them to guess the name of animals or fruits that the teacher holds. These activities require students to say something as an individual or all together in chorus. Furthermore, Girard et al. (2003) highlight that some techniques and materials to enable the students to mention the name of objects, such as: using realia, pictures, actions, drawings on the whiteboard, touching, tasting, feeling, smelling, etc.

Giving single word or phrase as response
This kind of speaking performance is usually conducted by the students when they are requested to describe something in English. In addition, Cameron (2001: 49) puts forward that the students might have understood about something presented through storytelling or reading but "when they are asked to produce a description, they mostly use single words and phrases".

Producing simple sentences
At the beginning of learning, the students might not have spontaneous speaking. Much of the English they learn to produce in the initial stages is formulaic language i.e.
"language that is produced as whole chunks rather than being put together word by word" (Girard et al., 2003, p.105). Some chunks are fixed while others can be complemented. It is believed that to enable the students producing simple sentences, the teacher should provide activities that encourage them to speak. It can be done by requesting children to use yes/no questions to guess the name of animal picture that the teacher holds (Cameron, 2001;Gebhard, 2001cited in Suyanto, 2008.

Getting involved in a dialog
Furthermore, getting involved in a dialog is also a kind of speaking performance that might be performed by young learners. Of course, this is not a long dialog as adult learners can do. Simple and short role play is suitable for children"s level of language (Vernon, 2009). Getting involved in a dialogue is an appropriate way to engage students in speaking activities (Ytrenberg & Scott, 1990: 39;Cameron, 2001;Paul, 2003: 77;Linse, 2005;Pinter, 2006;Suyanto, 2008). In this study a dialogue is used to provide students to speak within context. It is believed that a dialogue provides communicative phrases that children can learn and a teacher should provide appropriate ways to involve children in using dialogues (Cameron, 2001). It is in line with Girard et al., (2003) who highlights that children need to be given opportunities to speak English as much as possible. In addition, Pinter (2006) suggests that initially controlled dialogs and drill-like repetition can lead to freer dramatization or role plays.

Research Design
This study employed descriptive survey research design since the aim of the study is to determine specific characteristics of a group (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2007). It is in line with Helen and Dulok (1993) who state that to describe systematically and accurately the facts and characteristics of a given population or area of interest can be categorized as descriptive study. Students" characteristics in this study focus on the students" personal and learning needs in the context of teaching and learning English in kindergarten..

Respondents of the Study
The respondents of the study is 113 second year students from 6 kindergarten whose age range between 5 and 6 years olds. The reason for choosing these participants is that students in this class had mostly the same English language level that was the beginner"s level since the students had little knowledge of English and can recognize a little number of vocabularies (Phillips, 1999). Besides, 6 pricipals, 6 home room teachers and 1 English teachers were also interviewed to gather inormation about what are the learners needs in learning English in kindergarten in Pringsewu District context.
One kindergarten had English teacher one kindergarten had homeroom teacher graduated from English education department while the other kindergarten had no English teacher. The homeroom teachers teach English to their students.

The Research Site
This study was undertaken in six kindergartens in Pringsewu District, Lampung Province, Indonesia. These kindergartens were chosen randomly from 135 kindergartens in this district. Based on the information gathered from interviews with the teachers, they had difficulties in finding appropriate resource in teaching English to kindergarten students. While the text book they got from the commercial publisher is dominated by coloring activities which time consuming becomes the problem. In relation to this, the researcher finds a challenge to develop a teaching materials that can be used to teach English to kindergarten students.

Data Collection
Three kinds of data collection techniques were used in this study. Questionnaire and interviews were used to gather the information students" personal needs and learning needs while observation was used to know the students" speaking level of ability as the students" learning needs.

Questionnaire
A questionnaire which was developed to elicit the data on students learning needs consited of 2 parts. Part one consisted of 3 items asking about English educational background, part two consisted of 20 items asking about students attitude toward English language learning (3 items), activities preference in English language learning (4 iems), teaching media used by the teachers (5 items), and topic preferences in English teaching and learning (11 items) Subjects were required to color a smiley imoticon that best represented their response to the question,  means agree,  means neutral , means disagree. The questionnaire was translated into Indonesian Language in order to ensure that the subjects clearly understood each item. Since the kindergarten students may have difficulty in reading, the researcher read the question and the students give respond in their questionnaires. The classroom teachers also help the students when they respond the questionnaire.

Interviews.
The interviews with homeroom teachers and principals were conducted to know the students learning needs such as what is the students topic had been learned by students, what were the materials had been used by the homeroom teacher, students learning preferences and students learning experiences. The interview is the way to find out what is on their mind-what they think and how they feel about something (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2007).

Classroom Observation
Observation was used to know the students" speaking level of ability as the students" learning needs. Before the students responding the questionnaire, the researcher asked young learners questions and engaged them in conversations (Linse, 2005). In this study the researcher acted as a participant observer. By doing so, the researcher was able to take on in every activity that has been set out to be observed (Cohen and Manion, 1994). During the observation, the researcher took note on everything that was going on in the class after the class. Events were then reconstructed into field notes (Fraenkel

Data Analysis
The data from questionnaire was analysed by using descriptive statistics while the data from interview was analysed simultaneously during and after the data collection stage.
All data were transcribed and subsequently categorized and interpreted in a condensed body of information (Alwasilah, 2002), and lastly conclusion was drawn.

Results and Discussion
As mentioned earlier that this study aims to investigate the students needs in learning English in kindergarten context which is devided into two, namely (1) personal needs, in this study personal needs focused on the students cultural background, socioeconomic status, educational background, age, sex, and (2) learning needs focused on the students learning attitude, students learning preferences regarding activities, students learning preferences regarding English teaching media, learning preferences regarding topics, and the gap between the target level and the present level in terms of students speaking performance (Masuhara, 1998).

Personal needs
Personal needs in this study mean the information about the students as a person that can influence the learning process indirectly. The information about the students personal needs were gathered from the interview with the principals and also supported by the documents.

Cultural background
The result of interview with the pricipals from six kindergartens in Pringsewu distric showed that the students were members of various ethnics dominated by Javanese ethnic (74 students), followed by Lampungnese (20 students), Padangnese (7 students), Sundanese (5 students), Palembangnese (4 Students), Semendonese (2 students), and Acehnese (1 students). The percentage of the students" ethnicity can be seen in the diagram 1 as follow:

Figure 1. Students" Cultural Background
The variations of students" ethnicity are important to identify by the teachers or by the materials developers since socio-cultural factor can influence the teaching and learning English as a foreign language in the classroom (Faridi, 2008). As the implication, the materials developer should consider the students various ethnicity in developing English teaching materials for young learners in kindergarten context.

Socio-economic status
The students socio-economic background in this study was identified by the parents occupation. The percentage of the male parents" occupation can be seen in the Diagram 2 as follow:
It can be concluded that the students come from various class of society and dominated by middle class society.

Sex
From 113 students from six Kindergarten in Pringsewu District, it was identified that there were 62 female and 51 male students. The percentage of the students" gender can be seen in the Diagram 3 as follow: . The implication is that the materials developers should create the materials which are not gender bias, since sexist attitudes in textbooks increase sexism in society (Ebadi and Seidi, 2015). Besides, consideration in the students" sex is important for materials developers to balance the activities favored by the male and female students included in the materials.

Age
The students were at the age of 5-6 years old. There were 10 students at the age of five, 103 students were at the age of six. Thus, they can be categorized as young learners as the definition proposed by Cameron (2001) and Linse (2005) who stated that young learners are children whose age between five and twelve years of age. According to Phillips (1999) the students at the age of 5-6 years olds were at the same English language level that was the beginner"s level since the students had little knowledge of English and can recognize a little number of vocabularies (Phillips, 1999). The implication is that the materials developer should make goals and objectives, teaching methods, themes, that are appropriate with the students age, that is 5-6 years old.

Learning Needs
Learning needs in this study means the information about what the students" needs when they learn English as a foreign language which cover students learning attitude, student"s preferences regarding activities, students" preferences regarding teaching media, students" preferences regarding the topics, and the gap between the target level and the present level in terms of students speaking performance.

English Learning Experience
From the result of questionnaire and interview with teachers. It was found that no students joined English course out of school.There were three students that learn English with parents at home while 110 students do not learn English both at home or at English course. It could be seen from the following Diagram 4 as follow:

Diagram 4. Students" English Learning Experience
It indicated that almost all students learn English only at school with the teacher. Since in Indonesia, English is a foreign language automatically the students get input only from the teacher in the classroom.

Learning attitude
From the questionnaires it could be seen that 113 students agreed that learning English was fun, one student disagreed and one students was neutral. The percentage of the students" responses toward the question about their attitude toward learning English could be seen in the Diagram 6. as follow: Figure 5. Students" Attitude toward English The result of the questionnaire indicates that the students like learning English with the teacher in their school, It is also supported by the result of interview with six homeroom teacher who said that almost all of the students like learning English.
"Here, almost all of my students like learning English." (HT1/Q1) "The students like learning English." (HT3/Q1) "The students like English and they are enthusiast when learning English." (HT5/Q1) "They like studying English and very enthusiast." (HT6/Q1) It seems that the students like learning English. When there is a students does not like English it is not because the English itself but the other factors, such as: the students has special needs or because of the time schedule. It is proven by the result of the interview with the home room teacher as follow: "All students like English. But there is a student that does not like English not because of the English but because the students does not like learning and has special needs. Our school is inclusion school." (HT2/Q1) "Students like English, but because the time to learn English is at the end of the school time, the students have been tired. Actually, they like English."(HT4/Q1) The data indicates that almost all of the students like learning English and the teacher should consider the time schedule when English lesson must be delivered.

Learning preferences regarding activities
The result of the questionnaire shows that game was the most favored activity of the students when learning English followed by coloring, singing and story listening. It can be seen the diagram 6 as follow: Figure 6. Students" Learning preferences regarding activities Game is an important thing in the teaching and learning process but the most important thing is that game make the lesson is easier to be understood (Lewis and Bedson, 1999).
Moreover, based on the result of the study conducted by Huyen and Nga (2003), game is proven can give significant contribution toward vocabulary learning because learning is happen in fun situation.
The other activities in young learners" class are singing and story listening. According to Tomlinson (2005), teaching materials in teaching English for young learners have different characteristics compared to materials for adult. They should fulfill some criteria, such as: make use of young children"s stories and songs to language in use. It is in line with the result of questionnaire that almost all of the students enjoyed singing and story listening in learning English. It is crucial for material developer to include song in materials they produce since song is fun, enjoyable, motivating when the young learners learn English (Millington, 2011). It is supported by Yuksel (2016) who high light that using song in young learners" class can promote vocabulary acquisition motivate the children to learn English and increase children"s cultural awareness. The other activities in young learners class is story listening. Stories offer a whole imaginary world, created by language that children can enter and enjoy, learning language as they go (Cameron, 2001). The next advantage is that story offer positive concrete outcomes in the form of games, competitions, quizzes, drama, songs, projects, book making, etc.
It is clear that playing games, singing and story listening are the important activity in young learners class, so it seems essential to include the activities in the materials for young learners.

Learning preferences regarding English Teaching Media
The result of the questionnaire show that the students like when the teacher use hand puppet or finger puppet, picture cards, poster, video, poster and books with colorful pictures. The Diagram 7. shows the students learning preferences regarding the media in English teaching used by the teachers.

Figure 7. Students" Learning Preferences Regarding the Teaching Media
It is supported by Emiliasari (2015) who claimed that teaching English using puppets is effective and it is an attractive way that can be used by teacher. It helps the teacher as a medium to attract students attention, concentration, and enthusiastic in learning English.
It can make the classroom situation more interesting. The students enthusiasm in learning when the hand puppets were used could be comprehend from the researcher"s note.
All students are enthusiastic and paying full attention when the researcher used the hand puppet in the class room when she guide the students to fill the questionnaire (RN/TK5/C/8).
However, the use of picture cards in teaching and learning English in kindergarten is also crucial. Cameron (2001)  Furthermore, young learners also like to learn using video (computer or CD Room). In this study all students like to learn English by watching video. It is supported by the data from researcher"s note.
All of the students answer "yes" spontaneously when they are asked whether they like to learn English using laptop or not. (RN/TK 1/C/11) The students" enthusiasm was also supported from the data from interview with teacher. "They like to learn English using technology, I used my smartphone to help me play guessing game with the students." (HT4/Q9.2) "When I show them the video from my laptop, they pay full attention." (HT2/Q9.2).
The use of technology in teaching and learning English is highlighted by Recio (2007) who proved that the use of technology in teaching English for four-seven years olds students can improve not only English but also the students" literacy skill. It indicated that the use of technology can become a consideration by the materials developers.
However, the use of picture book in teaching and learning in pre-school education are also important. Zevenbergen and Whitehurst (2004) highlighted that the use of picture book in intervention can improve the students language skills, such as the improvement of vocabularies and also students" expressive language ability. In this study, 109 students from 113 students or 93 % students enjoyed learning English using picture book. It indicated that children loved to learn English by using various teaching media.
They liked the teaching media which is attractive and also colorful. It can become consideration for the materials developer that the students need to be exposed by various teaching media.

Learning preferences regarding topics
Topic or theme for young learners play crucial role in teaching English for kindergarten.
It could be seen in Diagram 8 that all students like the topic about animals, colors and numbers. It means that from four kinds of speaking performance that can be done by the students, they can conduct "Naming Object". This kind of speaking performance is usually carried out at the initial stage in young learners" classroom (Girard et al., 2003).To reach the next stage of speaking performance, the student needs to be given opportunities to speak English as much as possible (Girard et al., 2003).

Conclusion & recommendation
A research question was developed for investigation in this study. It is directed to identify the students" needs both personal needs and learning needs. The result of the needs analysis was used to construct some criteria to develop teaching materials which are appropriate with the learners" characteristics and learners" needs. The investigation of students" personal needs shows that the students are at the age of 6-7 years old, come from various ethnics, middle class of society, there are 64 female and 71 male students from six kindergartens. Meanwhile, the results of needs analysis on students learning needs show that they have positive attitude toward EFL class, they prefer learning English using song, story listening and coloring to other activities. The topics the students like most were animals, numbers, and foods followed by colours, then vehicle, parts of the body, things in the classroom, fruits, sports, and family. The students are still in the initial stage of speaking performance. Almost all of the students can produce limited vocabularies, such as: number 1-10, colours, and many of them can mention some name of fruits and animals.
Based on the needs analysis the materials should follow the criteria as follow: 1) The materials should be appropriate to be used by the kindergarten students who are at the age of 6-7 years old; 2) The materials should not consist of the text and task that raise conflict of ethnic, religion, race, and inter-group relation; 3) The materials should contain the topics which they familiar with; 4) The materials should be appropriate to be used by the students that have limited vocabulary; 5) The materials should support students to increase their speaking skill step by step; 6) The materials should facilitate the students to use the language by using fun teaching techniques, such as playing games, singing, storytelling, role-play, etc.; 7) The materials should be completed with various teaching media, such as; puppets, flash cards, posters, etc. This study gives recommendation for materials developers and further research. Materials developers should consider the students" personal needs and learning needs to construct the criteria of the materials. It is conducted to ascertain that the materials are suitable to be used by the students. This study also suggests that further researches should also investigate the teachers" factor to consider whether the materials are teachable or not.
Pupung Purnawarman, Ph.D. is a faculty member Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung-Indonesia. His research interest is ICT-based language instruction. He can be contacted at purnawarman@upi.edu