Evaluation of the Efl Textbook for Junior High School Students From Teachers’ Perspectives

Abstract

A textbook is commonly used as the main source of English Language Teaching material in Indonesia. However, it is important to evaluate the textbook in the first place. Teachers have to measure the value of a set of learning materials. Sheldon (1988) stated that the evaluation of the merits and demerits of a textbook will familiarize the teacher with its probable weakness and strengths. This will enable teachers to make appropriate adaption to the material in their future instruction. Hence, this study aimed to know the appropriateness of the EFL textbook “When English Rings a Bell” for the seventh-grade junior high school students based on the teachers’ perspective. This research was survey research. The data gathered through the questionnaire in the form of a checklist adapted from Mukundan, Hajimohammad, and Nimehchisalem (2011). The questionnaire distributed to ten English teachers from three different junior high schools in Jember. However, due to some circumstances, two English teachers did not join this research. This study applied descriptive statistics to describe briefly, what the gathered data showed. The data would be counted manually and interpreted by the following scores interpretation guide adapted from Mukundan and Nimehchisalem (2015, 768). The result of this study showed that the English textbook “When English Rings A Bell” published by the Ministry of Education and Culture is appropriate for seventh-grade junior high school students. It believed moderate usefulness with the total average score is 2.55 points. It means that this textbook provides adequate materials for students. This textbook is constructed by considering curriculum, syllabus, and the objectives of the language program. However, this textbook has weaknesses in terms of its suitability with an efficient outlay of supplementary materials, listening skill and reading skill. The suggestions are given including providing supplementary material, providing interesting texts, looking for appropriate text, and providing a listening section with well-recorded text in all chapters. The other criteria of the checklist are considered as points of strength. The results of this research can be offered to the English teachers to help them acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of the seventh-grade students’ English textbook published by the Ministry of Education and Culture 2017. By recognizing the strengths and weaknesses, teachers can make a better adaptation of the textbook. Therefore, it is suggested for further research to evaluate different textbooks by adapting Mukundan, Hajimohammadi, and Nimehchisalem’s (2011) evaluation checklist based on curriculum used or by using another checklist form. The publisher of this textbook is also suggested to revise the textbook by considering teachers’ evaluation of some important aspects of the textbook. It is an important thing to do since the teachers know the teaching-learning situation well. Therefore, they know what is best for their students.