The Representation of Environmental Awareness in the Indonesian ELT Textbook for Senior High School Students

Abstract

In today's globe, Indonesia is one of several nations struggling with environmental issues. Suwandi, Zainnuri, & Yunus (2019) stated that the lack of environmental awareness among the general populace was one of the contributing causes of the environmental problem. Schools or other formal educational institutions can be used to increase student’s environmental awareness. Environmental Education (EE) can help to increase awareness of the importance of protecting the environment and be more aware of environmental problems. EE’s importance should be involved in promoting educational values in learning through media, curriculum, or textbooks to increase environmental awareness. Curdt-Christiansen (2020) said that environmental issues around the world require urgent action to raise environmental awareness to impart awareness and knowledge to children through early literacy education and one of the media for literacy education is textbooks. English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks in Indonesia should contain language materials that not only cover the lexical and grammatical components of language but also environmental education (Putri, 2018). Textbooks in Indonesia include descriptions of students in Indonesia who have characters based on Pancasila. Pancasila Student Profile which is included in the textbook also contains environmental awareness. The study aims to describe the environmental awareness represented in the ELT textbook entitled “English for Change” for senior high school students published by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology Republic of Indonesia. The object of this study is the newest version of Indonesian ELT Textbooks endorsed by the government entitled "Bahasa Inggris: English for Change in SMA/SMK/MA Kelas XI". It has 266 pages divided into five units, written by, Puji Astuti, Aria Septi Anggaira, Atti Herawati, Yeyet Nurhayati, Dadan, Dayang Suriani, and published in 2022. The textbook is implemented in Indonesia where English is used as a foreign language (EFL). The research analyzed the English textbook “English for Change” by using CDA and the framework from Fairclough’s (1995) Three Dimensional Framework that consists of Description, Interpretation, and Explanation to find the representation of environmental awareness. The results show that environmental awareness is found in various forms of visual and textual materials in the textbook. However, not all elements of environmental awareness are included. Textbooks represent environmental awareness with elements of motivation, values and attitude, and elements of environmental knowledge.