Material Development for Peer-Assisted Learning Program (PALP) in Higher Education

Teaching English as a foreign language in higher education becomes more challenging from year to year. Based on the learner and learning needs, nowadays, English should be taught in relation to the other fields of the study. The phenomena require a certain ‘scenario’ to support the students’ English mastery. In accordance to the condition, English Education Department of Universitas Ahmad Dahlan has a program to help the students improving their English skills called Peer-Assisted Learning Program PALP. As an official program in the department, PALP is managed professionally by the boards. However, developing the appropriate materials for the program still becomes one big question to everyone dealing with the program, especially the boards. It is a really challenging work to develop such informative and practical materials for the students joining the program. Thus, in this paper, the writer will discuss several theories as the basis in developing the materials for PALP. It will cover the information about PALP, learner needs, learning needs, criteria of good materials, material development, and materials evaluation/assessment.