Pragmatic Features in the Speaking Sections of Bahasa Inggris untuk SMA/MA Kelas XI Semester 1

Senior high school students are expected to be able to communicate in English meaningfully as what the Curriculum 2006 demands. However, there is a vast opinion that senior high school students are not able to speak in English well. They still tend to speak in negative transfer or in rigid and fragmented English. They also often fail to understand what the speaker means, what and how to say appropriately. At the same time, speaking is one among seven important skills that should be equipped in the 21st survival challenge. The speaking skill shortcomings mentioned belong to pragmatics. In line with the Curriculum’s aim to make students to be able to speak English transactionaly and interpersonally, then it is focused to investigate one closest element of learning for students: course book. Pragmatics has four features that imply intensely in transactional and interpersonal functions. The four pragmatic features are context, the cooperative principles, speech acts, and politeness. Along with the rationales, an English course book that is mostly used by senior high school teachers and students in Surabaya was chosen to analyze. This study is intended to find what language functions is taught and how the language function is delivered as reflected by the four pragmatic features. This study is by nature qualitative and since it investigates a course book, it is required to use the content analysis with the speaking checklist and pragmatic features to help the analysis. This study found that the course book has 8 items in the basic competency that were transactional and interpersonal and all the four pragmatic features. Unlike all the language functions that had been found as what the Curriculum 2006 demanded, the four pragmatic features in the course book still had some characteristics and items of the features’ characteristics were not covered yet. Two characteristics in Speech Acts were not found. 5 items in Speech Acts and Politeness were not found as well. The arrangement of the four pragmatic features were provided moderately and mostly implied while they should be provided explicitly, like context. The four features fulfilled the syllabus of the Curriculum 2006 demanded and yet they were not arranged in the syllabus’ sequence. This thesis gives some suggestions. Using this course book under study, the teachers should assist and add information to their students with pragmatic knowledge. Teachers should enrich and deepen their knowledge about pragmatics in teaching English. This study may also give more knowledge about the importance of pragmatics in creating speaking materials