The Analysis of English Textbooks: “Active English 4” and “Grow with English 4” for Elementary School Students Based on Young Learners’ Characteristics

Teaching English for Elementary School has become popular nowadays. To support learning process, the teachers and students need a textbook which helps them in learning the materials. With textbook, the students and teacher know about what they will do in teaching and learning process. Those facts show that textbook evaluation is necessary and important to help all textbook consumers to find a proper textbook. Especially for young learners, it must be appropiate with their characteristics. This research aims to contribute to the improvement of English textbooks, particularly to Indonesian National Educational Department and the publisher. The researcher hopes that the teachers can be selective in choosing textbooks. Finally, the result of this research is expected to enhance a better condition in developing teaching and learning process. This is a qualitative research that applied a descriptive study as it framework. It is intendeed to find the aspects taken into two English Textbooks for Elementary School students. They are “Active English 4” published by Tiga Serangkai and “Grow with English 4” published by Erlangga. They were analyzed whether they were appropiate for young learners or not. There were three aspects which were analyzed. They were physical appearance, contents and support aids. From the data analysis, it found that both of the textbooks had a good physical appearance and content, but they did not provide the support aids. However, both of the textbooks provide the criteria of good textbooks for young learners. So, it can be concluded that both of the textbook appropriate with young learners characteristic. The study provides recommendation for English teachers in elementary school, good English teachers should be selective if they decide to use and choose their textbooks to conduct their teaching learning process. Teachers should be more creative and flexible in order to accommodate the needs of the students. And also for the publisher and authors of textbooks for young learners, when they produce the textbooks, they should consider not only the physical appearances but also the contents and the component which support teachers to use the textbooks. They should give much attention to design appropriate textbooks for young learners