Students ’ Competency Focuses in Literacy at Language and Letters Faculty , State University of Medan ( Unimed ) , Indonesia

The research aimed at describing Enlgish literacy competency of students, including information literacy. The rational of this research is taken from the vision of Universitas Negeri Medan which is planning to be a world class university. This educational institution which mostly supplies teachers should prepare students the better literacy competency. The first step to develop the competency is to do mapping about English literacy competency of students, including information literacy based on five information literacy standard of Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and The Australian and New Zealeand Institute for Information Literacy (ANZIL). The method used in the mapping is mixed methodology, qualitative and quantitative. The data of the research is 157 students from first and second semester of Indonesian letters Department. The tests done are reading, speaking, listening, speaking and writing, including students competency in accessing and understanding infromation in the internet. The result shows that English/information literacy competency of students vary (60 % low, 30% medium, and 10 % high). There fore, it is necessary to do some efforts to improve English literacy competency of students at the Department of Indonesian Letters Faculty of Language and Arts Universitas Negeri Medan.


Introduction
Literacy has become a popular isue that the government encourages this thing through National Literacy programme.This programme is one of the efforts to invigorate a synergy among official units; government and non-government organisation in ways of collecting all potencies and to broaden public involvement.By doing so, literacy activities become a culture in Indonesia (e.g.see, Smith and John A, 2009) as to improve national literacy is necessary to pack it in an integrated national movement which is not partial, individual and or is controlled by particular group (see also.Eithen Kennedy at.al. 2012) which did the development and improvement children literacy age 3-8 years.
It is of course universities are leaving no action, they should stand on the frontiest line to drive the literacy programme.In this respect, Universitas Negeri Medan as teachers supplier institution needs to prepare all its resources to support it and to improve its competency in ways of accessing information/knowledge in English, understanding it, and delivering it.English digital information ; e-book and e-journal is important learning resources that students should be familar with.However, undergradute students, mainly the Department of Indonesian Letters, Faculty of Language and Arts, Universitas Negeri Medan have a low interest to such English materials.They said it is hard to understand, take time and money to translate it.More over, to express their opinion in speaking or writing, it is the hardest thing for them.
Moving from this daily experience, the mapping students English competency and programme to improve students English competency, including ablitiy to access English digital information are primary tasks to do.The mapping is done through activities : listening, reading, writing, and speaking.The results of the mapping and the ability test to access English digital information are used as the base step to revise the curriculum of KKNI.There fore, the Department of Indonesian Letters is expected to take some efforts to improve English students competency.One of the efforts is to revise KKNI curriculum, that is, plan to add four English subjects: 1) English, 2) English Literacy, English Translation, and 4) English for Academic Purpose.
Revising the curriculum of KKNI is very essential to produce the student's assignments quality, especially Mini Research, Critical Book Review, and Article Review.Those assignments require good English literacy competency and there fore, the student English competency should be improved.In the other hand, it is expected that the revision and the development and improvement programme to English student competency have significants effects on the better student academic quality and on their competitiveness for job opportunities.

II.
Literature Review CCSS determined the general base line and learning indicators encompassing four language skills; listening, reading, speaking and writing from children to adult learners.The base line and leaning indicators for literacy learning integrate linguistic knowledge and metacognitive to understand texts from varieties of fields (see.Murphy. S., 2003).This means that the knowledge and language competency are essential to measure the level of individual literacy in terms of listening, reading, speaking and writing.Language (bahasa) provides a significant contribution to other fields.John S.Hedgcock & Dana Ferris (2009) explored teaching materials and English teaching for ESL and EFL which focused on texts and contexts understanding in English teaching for ESL and EFL.This research is in line with Murphy S (2003) which is instead of understanding texts and contexts of its literacy, he showed the implicit and explicit literacy competency through language, symbol, gesture, and the like.
Another thing which is mainly important to improve students competency in the age of digital is literacy of information as Hasugian (2009: 200), explained that information literacy is a set of skills needed to search for , analyse, and use information.This idea is not much different from the research report by American Library's Association's Presidental Commite on Information Literacy (1989).It is said that "information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognise when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectivelly the needed information.
Literacy is closely relation to the terminology of literated discourse.Literacy can widely be meant as the language competency covering the skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing and including thinking skill.Tompkins (1991: 18) argued that literacy is the competency to understand and use writing and reading materials in ways of doing jobs field and life out of schools.Different from this idea, Wells (2005) expressed literacy is competency to get along with discourse correctly as representation of experiences, thought, emotion, and opinion based on the purpose.But, how to understand the discourse if it is not