The Criteria of Good Text

a. Textbook Description

Textbook description refers to the description of data on the textbook itself. It can be seen from: 1 Author’s and publishers’ information; 2 Textbook reviews; 3 Checklist; 4 Textbook descriptive tools.

b. Textbook Evaluation

Textbook evaluation is usually conducted in two ways: 1. Users’ judgments teachers and learners 2. Experimental research into the effects of textbooks. Hence it can be concluded that the selection of textbook can be done in two ways. The first is the selection from the textbook itself and the selection from the users of the textbook. One technique of selecting textbook from the textbook itself is by analyzing the readability level of the reading texts in the textbook. As stated by Browers and Brumfit that the readability of texts was investigated to obtain a standard for the relative degree of difficulty of the textbooks of which one would eventually have to be selected. 4

3. The Criteria of Good Text

Reading text is one of important aspects in an English textbook. Since in the reading activities always involve the reading passages therefore the selection of a good passage become an important thing. Selecting a good passage is not an easy matter. As states by Richard R. Day in his article entitle Selecting a Passage for the EFL Reading Class, “One of reading the more complex tasks facing the EFL reading teacher is the selection of appropriate reading passages…. Since the focus of EFL reading class should be on some aspect of reading, the selection of an appropriate reading passage is critical. If the passage chosen is inappropriate for whatever reason, the chances of success for that particular lesson are substantially lessened.” 5 4 Rogers Browers and CJ. Brumfit eds., Applied Linguistics and English Language Teaching…, p. 305. 5 Richard R. Day, “Selecting a Passage for EFL Reading Class”, http:eca.state.govforumvolsvol32no1p20.htmspecial_ret_114 , retrieved on Monday, March 1, 2010. Since reading texts plays an important role in the reading activities, therefore it is better to find out the criteria of good text. According to Day there are seven factors involved in selecting an English as a Foreign Language EFL reading passages, those are: interest, exploitability, readability, topic, political appropriateness, cultural suitability, and appearance. 6 Furthermore, Nuttal states that there are three main criteria influence the choice of texts. The first is suitability of content that is the text should interest the readers. The second is exploitability that is, facilitation of learning. When teacher exploit a text, she makes use of it to develop the students’ competence as readers. The last criterion is readability that is the combination of structural and lexical difficulty. 7 Among all criteria which states by Day and Nuttall, both of them include readability as one of the criteria in selecting a good passage. Thus, it can be concluded that readability is an important aspects from a text. Since readability can be used to measure whether a text is appropriate for a particular level of students.

B. Concept of Readability 1.

Definition of Readability Readability is one of the most important aspects that should be considered in selecting a good passage for students. Since, readability can determine the achievement of the goal in teaching reading. Some language experts or researchers define the term readability of a written text or readable text differently. In general readability is defined as ease of a written text and its suitability of writing style and grade level for whom the text is intended to. 8 Readability is not only determined by the length of the passages or the length of the words, but it is also determined by how interestingly and 6 Day, “Selecting a Passage for EFL Reading Class”…, retrieved on Monday, March 1, 2010. 7 Christine Nuttall, Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language, Oxford: Heinemann, 1996, New Edition, pp. 170-174 8 Maria H. Soelistio, “The use of readability formula to predict the grade level of a written text”, in Majalah Ilmiah Widya, No.211 Tahun XX, April 2003, p.53.