THE RELEVANCE OF LEARNING MATERIALS OF THE ENGLISH TEXTBOOK “LOOK AHEAD” FOR THE TENTH YEAR STUDENTS WITH THE INSTITUTIONAL LEVEL ENGLISH CURRICULUM FOR GRADE X

Abstract

Curriculum is an important tool for successful teaching. It functions as the basis for delivering the teaching and learning materials in the classroom. Dealing with curriculum, a textbook plays a crucial role in delivering the curriculum materials. It provides a base of materials for both teachers and students. However, it is not a perfect teaching tool because it may have incomplete and irrelevant materials. So, it is recommended that it has to be analyzed comprehensively before it is selected and used in the classroom. This research focused on analyzing the relevance of learning materials in an English textbook with the Institutional Level English Curriculum because it is important to know whether the learning materials of the English textbook are relevant or not with the curriculum applied and therefore it can be informed that the textbook analyzed is suitable or not to be used in the classroom. This research was conducted to analyze the relevance of learning materials of the English textbook “Look Ahead” for the tenth year students published by Erlangga in 2007 with the Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X. The design of this research was descriptive quantitative and qualitative research. The data of this research were the learning materials of the English textbook “Look Ahead” for the tenth year students published by Erlangga in 2007. The Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X was the parameter to measure the relevance of the learning materials of the English textbook “Look Ahead” for the tenth year students published by Erlangga in 2007. It was found that the learning materials in the English textbook “Look Ahead” for the tenth year students published by Erlangga in 2007 are 31% relevant and 69% irrelevant to the Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X. It happens because the English textbook “Look Ahead” does not include some learning materials stated in the Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X, it has many other learning materials which are not stated in the Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X, and its learning materials are not put in order as suggested in the Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X. Nevertheless, this textbook still can be a source of learning materials because it still has 31% of relevant learning materials and it has cultural awareness section which is important to give some input to the students about cross-cultural understanding. Based on the research result the researcher suggests the English teachers who use the English textbook “Look Ahead” to have another supplementary textbook as the supporting source of this textbook. In other words, the English teachers are suggested to use more than one textbook. Besides, they are suggested to make their own textbooks based on the Institutional Level English Curriculum for grade X. It is also suggested that the future researchers undertake a further research that focuses on the relevance of the other English textbooks published by the other publishers with curriculum as the topic of investigation.