An Evaluation of Tenth Grade Students’ English Textbook Published by the Ministry of Education and Culture of The Republic of Indonesia 2016

Abstract

The English textbook that is widely used in Indonesia, especially in Jember, is English textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture. However, some teachers who used this textbook stated that they needed to look for other materials to support this textbook since it lacked of exercises and some materials were not suitable with their teaching and learning process. Hence, this study aimed to explore whether or not the English textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture (focused on tenth grade students‟ textbook only) meets the criteria expected in the adapted version of Mukundan and Nimehchisalem‟s evaluation checklist (2015) and to know teachers‟ suggestions on how this textbook can be improved. It also gives information concerning the appropriateness, strengths, and weaknesses of the textbook. This study was retrospective evaluation study since the textbook had been used by some schools in Jember. It applied mixed method research design due to its ability to gain data quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative data were gathered through a checklist adapted from Mukundan and Nimehchisalem (2015) to answer the first research question which was to know whether or not the textbook meets the criteria expected in the checklist. Qualitative data were gathered by interviewing three tenth grade English teachers in three different schools to answer the second research question regarding their suggestions of improvement. Quantitative data were first counted manually to look for the average score from each criterion by using formula adopted from Waluyo (1992) and interpreted by following scores interpretation guide adopted from Mukundan and Nimehchisalem (2015). Then, qualitative data was analyzed by using a procedure of analyzing qualitative data adapted from Creswell (2012). The result of the study showed that the tenth grade students‟ English textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture 2016 has all criteria expected in the adapted version of Mukundan and Nimehchisalem‟s evaluation checklist (2015). It was believed to be highly useful with the total average score of 2.95. All the criteria in the checklist got scores ranging from 2 – 4 (moderate usefulness – very high usefulness). Thus, teachers‟ suggestions concerning how this textbook can be improved were focused on the 12 criteria in the lowest category, which was moderate usefulness category, in terms of suitability to learners, general content, grammar, pronunciation, exercises, reading, methodology, and listening. The suggestions given including: providing more group activities, asking the teacher of other subjects or the students whether certain topic has already given in another subject to relate it with English teaching-learning, reviewing grammar items which had been discussed in the previous chapter when explaining about other topics, integrating pronunciation learning with other skills, providing more challenging questions, providing multiple choice questions, looking for other interesting and appropriate texts, beginning the activities from the easiest to the complicated one, providing listening section in all chapters along with the comprehension questions, providing authentic listening materials, and considering various listening contexts such as formal and informal context. The results of this research can be offered to the English teachers to help them acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of the tenth grade students‟ English textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture 2016. By recognizing the strengths and weaknesses, teachers can make better adaptation of the textbook. Therefore, it is suggested for future researchers to conduct an evaluation of different textbook by adapting Mukundan and Nimehchisalem‟s (2015) evaluation checklist based on curriculum used or by using another checklist. The publisher of this textbook is also suggested to revise the textbook by considering teachers‟ evaluation since the teachers know their teachinglearning situation well.