AN EVALUATION OF ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS FOR THE EIGHTH GRADERS OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

The objectives of this study were: (1) to examine the appropriateness of textbooks used by English teachers based on the criteria synthesized from ones proposed by Pusat Perbukuan and some ELT experts and in what way they are appropriate based on the preceding criteria, (2) to discover whether textbooks used by English have fulfilled the criteria of good textbooks, and (3) to give recommendations for English teachers regarding the further actions which teachers should do with their textbooks. This research was categorized as a content analysis study following four systematic steps proposed by Ary, et.al. (2010). Those were: (1) deciding on the subjects which were two English textbooks for the grade VIII of Junior High School entitled “Let’s Talk: English for Students of Grade VIII (SMP/MTs)” and “English on Sky 2 for Junior High School Students Grade VIII ”, (2) referring to the criteria of English textbook evaluation published by Pusat Perbukuan (2011) and other ELT experts (3) applying the criteria for evaluating textbooks by using a simple tick and cross system as judgments, and (4) analyzing the textbooks. The data were gathered by evaluating textbooks using the checklist containing the criteria of textbook evaluation. In the data analysis technique, the percentage of criteria fulfillment was calculated by dividing the the total of criteria points which weremet in a textbook for each sub aspect with the total of criteriapoints in each sub aspect. It was then multiplied by 100%. To ensure the credibility of this research, consensus and triangulation were applied. The results showed that “Let’s Talk: English for Students of Grade VIII (SMP/MTs)” have fulfilled the criteria of a good textbook by achieving the average fulfillment score of 80% with fulfillment score of 83% for relevance of the materials to the curriculum, 86% for material accuracy, 71% for supporting learning materials, 87% for language appropriateness, 100% for presentation technique, 87% for teaching and learning technique, and 60% for presentation coverage. On the other hand, “English on Sky 2 for Junior High School Students Grade VIII” have fulfilled the criteria of a fair textbook by achieving the average fulfillment score of 78% with fulfillment score of 67% for relevance of thematerials to the curriculum, 86% for material accuracy, 57% for supporting learning materials, 87% for language appropriateness, 100% for presentation technique, 87% for teaching and learning technique, and 60% for presentation coverage. It was then recommended that teachers need to modify the tasks and activities on both textbooks which did not fulfill the criteria of good textbooks especially in the area of content, language, and presentation aspects