Attitudes of Japanese Learners of English Towards English Users in ELT Textbooks

Through a combination of questionnaires, focus groups, and class interviews, this study investigated the attitudes of Japanese secondary school students towards the representations of English users and English-language communications appearing in English language textbooks. The results showed a congruence of student preferences for inner-circle (IC) (Kachru, 1985) orientations with the IC-oriented features most commonly found in English textbooks approved and used in Japanese secondary schools. They also revealed how student familiarity with textbooks influences preferences for the ways English users and English-language communications are represented in them. 本研究では、質問紙、フォーカス・グループ、クラス・インタビューを用いて、日本の中学・高校生の英語教科書の中の英語使用者と英語コミュニケーションの描写に対する態度を調査した。調査の結果、生徒の英語圏（inner-circle内心円）(Kachru, 1985) を好む傾向と、日本の中等学校で使用されている文部科学省検定英語教科書に最もよく見られる、英語圏主流を示す特徴に、一致が見られた。また、調査結果は、生徒の教科書に対する慣れや親しみが、生徒の教科書中の英語使用者と英語コミュニケーションの描写方法についての嗜好に、どのように影響を与えるかについても明らかにした。

Developing Criteria of an English Textbook Evaluation for Indonesian Senior High School

The use of criteria of an English textbook is crucial to improve the quality of teaching. However, choosing the criteria is a challenging task for teachers and material developers. This recent study aims at developing criteria of an English textbook evaluation for Indonesian Senior High School. This research used Research and Development. Three phases were employed: exploration stage, development stage, and validation stage. At the exploration stage, 17 respondents of English teachers were asked about the need of developing the criteria of the English textbook. All respondents agreed that the textbook evaluation criteria were needed since there is no particular standardized textbook evaluation available. Therefore, they need to use the criteria as the basis to determine the quality of a particular textbook. At the development stage, 10 criteria to evaluate textbooks were constructed. Those cover (1) aims and approaches; (2) design and organization; (3); content; (4) skills; (5) vocabulary; (6) exercises and activities; (7) methodology; (8) attractiveness of the textbook and physical make-up; (9) teacher’s manual; and (10) practical consideration. At the validation stage, the textbook evaluation criteria were deemed valid by experts. Considering these facts, 10 designed criteria could be used as the principle to determine an evaluation of English textbooks, primarily in the teaching English at Indonesian Senior High school.

Raising Students’ Cultural Awareness and Developing Their Intercultural Communicative Competence: The Case of the Greek State Primary School EFL Textbooks

The present study focuses on the critical evaluation of the cultural content incorporated in the 5th and 6th grade English textbooks, which are taught in the Greek state primary school. Given that we are living in the era of increasing globalization, it is deemed essential that aspects of diverse cultures should be reflected in the English textbooks, thus enabling contemporary EFL learners to master the ability to use the English language efficiently in their intercultural interactions regardless of their socio-cultural background. The research findings succinctly reveal that the vast majority of state EFL teachers in Greece are fervent proponents of an intercultural approach in their teaching practices. However, they are not reliant on the prescribed textbooks under scrutiny for promoting the intercultural dimension in their educational methodology, since their cultural input is assessed as deficient and inadequate for dynamic intercultural instruction.

LEVELS OF COGNITIVE DOMAIN OF TASKS IN ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS FOR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL: A REVISED BLOOM’S TAXONOMY ANALYSES

This study is a descriptive qualitative which aims to know the appropriateness of the textbook’s content with the cognitive dimension of Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy and to know the dominant cognitive category of the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in the textbook. This research was focused on analyzing the English Textbook, “Pathway to English”, which is published by Erlangga. The data was analyzed through data analysis table to categorize the activity with defined as any one of the following: a question or instructional activity, based on cognitive dimension. The result showed that there are 271 activities in the textbook. The activities spread over 105 (38.7%) remembering, 76 (28%) understanding, 48 (17.7%) applying, 28 (10.3%) analyzing, 7 (2.6%) evaluating, and 7 (2.6%) creating. The total number of activities that included to HOTS are 42 activities or 15.5% and the activities that included to LOTS are 229 activities or 84.5%. The most dominant activity was remembering which the lowest dimension of cognitive level of Revised Bloom Taxonomy. Then, the number of LOTS and HOTS activities in each chapter are very different. Hence, it is not enough if the teacher just only uses the English textbook as a teaching tool to improve students HOTS ability.

THE POSITION OF SOURCE CULTURE IN THE CURRENT EFL TEXTBOOKS IN INDONESIA REFLECTED IN 3 RESEARCH FINDINGS

Based on this background, the authors are interested in examining more deeply with research questions, namely why book authors tend to take source culture as material and what are real examples of cultural values reflected in textbooks.The research method used in this study is a qualitative research method with the type of library research. Thus the data collection method used is observation. Observations were made on three journals that have been selected as data for analysis, namely analysis of the cultural content of third grade English textbooks in Cianjur, West Java, Cultural content in Indonesian case English teaching textbooks (ELT), Analysis of cultural content in Pathway textbooks. to English for the second grade of high school. The theory used as an analytical knife is the theory of Cortazzi and Jin (1999) which examines culture. The results of the analysis show that there is a tendency for the authors to choose local culture as a teaching material, as evidenced by 13.11% in Faris journal, 45% in Kurnia journal and 19% in Nurjannah journal who choose source culture as teaching material. The reason the author chooses source culture as source material is because the material is easily understood by the participants of the source culture, the source culture is easily found in real terms, the delivery of the source culture can help preserve the culture itself so that it does not become extinct, the source culture material can broaden students' horizons because of its diversity in Indonesia.Source cultural materials can indirectly foster nature and mutual respect for cultural differences between one another.