The Need to Develop English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Reading Syllabus for Students of Islamic Education Department – Islamic Higher Education Institution

INGGRIS: The teaching of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has been criticized for having some negative impacts on marginalization of local languages, infiltration of English (Western) culture, and the spread of Christianity. For this reason, in Islamic institutions especially for students of Islamic Education Department (IED), English should be taught by incorporating Islamic values. This can be done by teaching English as English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This research is an educational Research and Development (R and D) aimed at developing an ESP reading syllabus for students of IED. The research was conducted in three phases: exploration phase, model development phase, and model testing phase. In the exploration phase, a descriptive research was conducted to describe the existence and quality of the present syllabus. During the model development phase, the draft of ESP reading syllabus was developed, revised, and tried out. In the model testing phase, the draft was experimentally tested to see its effectiveness in developing the students’ reading comprehension skill. The experiment proved that the students taught using the reading materials taken from the designed syllabus performed better in reading comprehension test compared to the students who were taught using the materials taken from the present syllabus.