EVALUATING THE RELEVANCE OF GRADE 10 ENGLISH TEXTBOOK: READING TASK IN FOCUS

Abstract

The main objective of the study was evaluating the relevance of the reading tasks of grade 10 English textbook that is published in 2003. The study aimed to analyze whether the tasks in the textbook are designed in light with current theories of communicative tasks. In order to achieve these objectives, mixed design was employed. To do so, textbook has been used as a source of data and the activities in the textbook were selected and analyzed based on components of communicative tasks of Nunan’s (1989) framework such as goals, inputs, activities, role and setting. The textbook analysis checklist was adapted from scholars such as Nunan (1989) and cunning worth (1995). Semi- structured interviews were the other tool used to get teachers’ views. The researcher used available sampling techniques to select participants. The data was presented and interpreted qualitatively and quantitatively and analyzed thematically. The finding of the study has shown that, the reading tasks are organized from different genre of text and activities and this helps to make the reading lesson interesting.. Contents of reading texts seem to be an authentic and interesting as they are collected from various genres of texts and topics. The activities/tasks are presented in each reading section, but, they were not distributed in appropriate ratio. One type of activities was presented dominantly over the other. The finding of this study also revealed that, the role of student is presented clearly in the textbook. Students had more roles in the task than teachers. Moreover, activities are presented suitably in order to practice them individually in pairs and in group. The conclusion made from the study is that, the inputs of reading tasks such as reading texts are collected from different topics and contents. Finally, based on the findings and conclusion, it can recommended that, objectives of the reading tasks should be written clearly in each reading lessons. Besides, teachers should adapt some reading activities/ tasks that are not presented in the student’s textbook.