A Socio-Semiotic Perspective on a Unit of Work in an Indonesian Textbook

Abstract

The English Language Teaching (ELT) syllabus in Indonesia is based on communicative language and genre-based teaching approaches. In many cases, teachers use textbooks without adaptation or selection (Sari 2011). The published English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks have to meet the standards set by the Indonesian Board of National Education Standards (BSNP). This Board evaluates EFL textbooks from primary to secondary schools. Silvia (2014) suggests that the evaluation is only applied to the physical aspects of the textbooks, such as the appearance and design. Tomlinson (2012) notes the continued use of textbooks despite complaints about design principles, selection of materials, and a lack of understanding of current teaching methodology and research in language teaching and linguistics. Lim (2007) examined a section of an English language textbook used in a Korean middle school and identified decontextualised and artificial texts with grammar dissociated from social purposes and doctored with selected grammar items to teach comparative and superlative adjectives. Textbooks with unnatural texts and pseudo-conversations provide no opportunities for learners’ meaning making for participation in sociocultural practices. Growing competition among EFL publishers (Littlejohn 2011), locally and globally, is the reason for systematic review of commercially published languages teaching resources.