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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
This chapter encompasses the background of the research, problem identifications, research problems, research objectives,
and the significance of the research.
A. Background of the Research
Like other languages, English as a Foreign Language EFL has been introduced inseparably from its culture, either source
culture cultures from origin countries the learners coming from, target culture cultures from origin countries where English is
coming from, like US and UK, or international target culture cultures from English speaking countries other than US and UK.
These cultures are naturally embedded in English, either in the form of habits, food, norms, values, general beliefs, or life styles.
Often found when learners learn English through some media, such as television, newspaper, novels, books, or textbooks, at the same
time they got a new cultural knowledge of English speaking countries. Students in the remote area of Kalimantan, for instance,
read about Valentine Day, Thanksgiving, or Halloween Day in their English textbooks when they are learning English at schools.
In an EFL setting, English has been the ‗carrier‘ of culture. Consequently, TEFL teaching English as a Foreign Language
materials load the cultural content. Culture can be big C and little c as Adaskou, Britten Fahsi classifies, that culture
1
in foreign language teaching as ‗big C‘ referring to the media, cinema, music,
or literature that commonly become the initial interest of the learners in learning English; and ‗little c‘ which relates to the
organization of family, home life, interpersonal relations, work and leisure, customs and institutions that needs a closer look compared
to big C. EFL learners at the first time of their period of learning English might be interested by the trending or popular cultures such
as: songs, TV shows, English movies, and so on. As they learn a lot
1
Adaskou, et al. , ―Design Decisions on the Cultural Content of a Secondary
English Course for Morocco ‖ ELT Journal Volume 441 January 1990: pp. 3—
10.
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more and deeper, they learn closer to the ‗small c‘ such as: the relationship between teenagers adolescents in western countries,
school life, customs in western, or the system of education there. EFL learning materials ideally facilitate this grading cultural
knowledge of their learners, so that foreign language learning can be a medium of intercultural learning as well. This intercultural
competence as a component of communicative competence, is essential in this era as the
learners are ‗connected‘ each other in the almost borderless world. At school only, learners encounter various
local cultures among tribes, like Javanese, Betawi, Batak, Padang, Sunda, and such. Not to mention other contexts these learners are
communicating such as: online social media, cross-national community, virtual peers or even pen pals. In this respect, cultural
understanding is essentially needed.
Cultural understanding is the core of language acquisition
2
. Culture carriers in EFL teaching and learning are greatly the
instructional materials. These materials are represented by textbooks or course books, video and audio materials, computer
software, and visual aids. Among these materials, textbooks appoint the favored use among the teachers in Indonesia. Apart
from the notion that textbooks are ‗a resource for presentation material, a source of activities for learner practice and
communicative interaction,... a resource for self-directed learning or self-access work, and a support for less experienced teachers
who have yet to gain in confidence
3
‘, they are still the most accessible and practical learning materials. It is also supported by
the fact that textbooks do not require tools, electricity, or other equipments to make it usable. This favored use of English
textbooks suggests that there should be a careful and thorough process in the process of textbook selection. English textbooks
should be not only attractive in terms of its visual presentation, but most of all, it should consider some other factors such as its
appropriateness to learners‘ socio-economic background, cultural
2
Norhana Abdullah and Sanda Komari Chandran, ―Cultural Elements in a
Malaysian English Language Textbook ‖, retrieved online at October 21, 2012
from ddms.usim.edu.myhandle123456789713
3
Alan Cunningsworth, Choosing Your Coursebook Oxford: Heinemann, 1995, p. 7.
22
background, and also their goals of EFL learning. Otherwise, English textbooks will not be the good cultural agents which
support intercultural and communicative competence. When learners are not exposed to enough cross-cultural knowledge, they
are prone to be misinterpreting other cultures or stereotyping. Thus, EFL textbooks are expected to provide rich cultural exposure
mentioning not only source culture, but also target culture and international target culture. Nevertheless, in spite EFL textbooks
are generally expected to contain aspects of target culture where the English is introduced, number of studies suggest that target
language is not always presented
4
. Drawing from above situation, cultural consideration is
urgent to investigate. The urgency of considering the culture representation on the English textbooks in Indonesia is based on
some arguments. To begin with, the representation of source culture, international culture, and target culture all at once in a
textbook may lead into a cultural mismatch
5
. Some celebrations like Halloween or Valentine Day, for instance, could be culturally
mismatched to Indonesian students. Boy and girl, man and woman relationship or pattern of interaction could be mismatched to
Indonesian students who are commonly Muslims. Later, the locally published English textbooks are less preferable compared to
internationally published textbooks. Indonesian teachers in well- funded schools prefer to use internationally published books for
their students, like Cambridge University Press, Pearson Longman, and such which surely contain less source culture Indonesian
culture. These internationally published textbooks are more favored as they provide
‗perfect‘ English to teach the four language skills and contain richer materials than those do by the locally
4
M. Aliakbari, ―The Place of Culture in the Iranian ELT Textbooks in High
School Level ‖ in PAAL Japan 17th Conference Proceedings 2004, pp.1—14
accessed at
October 21,
2012 from
http:www.paaljapan.orgresourcesproceedings2004Aliakbari.pdf
5
Dian Ekawati and Fakry Hamdani, ―Cultural Mirrors: Materials and
Methods in English as a Foreign Language ‖ in International Journal of Basic
and Applied Science Vol. 01, No. 01 July 2001: pp. 53 —59.
23
published books.
6
This case indicates that locally published textbooks need improvement in order to compete with
internationally published
ones, especially
in the
visual representation, phonological accuracy, rich cross-cultural material,
and various challenging activities for the students. Dealing with the English textbook standard, Indonesian
Board of National Education Standard BSNP has constructed some criteria for approved English textbooks to be used at schools
in Indonesia. Decree No. 22 year 2006 concerning the content standard is trying to set standard for standardized EFL materials.
Further, BSNP also developed some instruments of English textbook evaluation for every level of schools from primary
schools SDMI to high schools SMAMA. However, this instrument only touches some physical aspects of the English
textbooks without analyzing the cultural appropriateness as one of the criteria of evaluation. Three components that are assessed
comprise: 1 the language appropriateness appropriateness with
the level of students‘ cognitive development and socio-economic factor, communicativeness, cohesiveness and coherence; 2
presentation of the book technique of presentation and presentation of learning activities; and 3 the completeness of
presentation all the chapters are complete from introduction to closing.
To compare with, some other Asian countries through their Ministry of Education are concerning this cultural content in EFL
textbooks in order to raise the students‘ cultural awareness of their own culture as well as to raise the intercultural competence so that
they can reflect their own culture by learning other cultures from English speaking countries. Japanese Ministry of Education,
Culture, Sports, Science and Technology MEXT, for instance,
maintains that ―the understanding of cultures‖ should be regarded as one of the main objectives in teaching English at the secondary
6
Nugrahenny T. Zacharias, ―Teachers‘ Beliefs about Internationally-
Published Materials: A Survey of Tertiary English Teachers in Indonesia ‖ in
RELC 36.1 April 2005: pp. 23 —27.
24
school level
7
. Even, Ministry of Education of Peoples Republic of China took a big step by asking an internationally standardized
publisher Longman to work together with the academics of China to develop EFL materials which portrait the daily life of Chinese
and Western children living in Beijing as they interact in school or engage
in more
culturally-specific activities
at home
8
. Additionally, English culture is limited to some descriptions of
food, festivals, and places of interest, sport and language. These two examples suggest that cultural preservation needs to be
considered in selecting and evaluation EFL materials textbooks.
EFL textbooks in Indonesia are used in both public schools and private schools. Among these public schools, there are also
some state Islamic schools which use the same standard of EFL textbooks from the MoNE of Indonesia. Consequently, these
schools use the similar English textbooks as those used by state high schools SMP Negeri and SMA Negeri. Apparently, the need
of these schools cannot be generalized as similar to public schools since the students of Islamic schools possess some additional need
of more appropriate English textbooks which comply with the Islamic values. Rohmah mentions that the English teachers, by
survey, mention that they also need Islamic values in the English textbooks
9
. This might be caused by the fact that in daily EFL practices, students of state Islamic schools encounter various
cultures, such as: their inherited cultures Javanese, Betawese, Sundanese, etc., local cultures Indonesian culture eastern
culture, Islamic values, and added by cultures from English speaking countries represented in the English textbooks. A
preliminary survey towards English teachers of Madrasah Tsanawiyah in DKI Jakarta also suggests that 63 of the
respondents state that they need the English textbooks loading
7
Nobuko Yamanaka , ―An Evaluation of English Textbooks in Japan from
the Viewpoint of Nations in the Inner, Outer, and Expanding Circles ‖ in JALT
Journal, Vol . 28, No . 1 May, 2006: pp. 57 —76.
8
Bob Adamson and Paul Morris , ―The English Curriculum in the Peoples
Republic of China ‖ in Comparative Education Review 41 1, December 1997:
pp. 3 —26.
9
Zuliati Rohmah , ―EFL Materials in Madrasah Tsanawiyah: What Do They
Really Need ‖ in TEFLIN Journal, Volume 20, Number 1 February 2009: pp.
104 —117.
25
source culture, target culture, international culture, and also Islamic values
10
. Further, these teachers want that the source culture should be dominantly presented, while the other cultures and Islamic
values can be inserted as a complementary. Drawing from this fact, the writer concludes that a textbook
evaluation, particularly on cultural content is essential to conduct in Indonesian setting in order to better select EFL materials which
suitable to the students‘ need. More specifically, cultural content analysis on English textbooks used in Islamic schools need to be
carried out. The students of Islamic schools, like the other students at public schools are ideally being proportionally exposed to the
different cultures outside their own. This aimed at raising their cultural awareness of their own identity as well as enriching it with
good values taken from the other cultures. At the same time, the proportional portion of cultural representation on the English
textbooks are hoped to aid the students to be culturally wise and smart, by adapting the suitable values from other cultures and
eliminating the bad ones. Particularly for Islamic school students, they are expected to be culturally aware in comparing and
contrasting as well as filtering the presented cultures in their English textbooks with their Islamic values and cultures.
This research limits the scope of the study to the Madrasah Tsanawiyah level in DKI Jakarta. The choice of this scope is based
on some considerations. First, the selected region DKI Jakarta is a good sample of multicultural area where there are various ethnics
of the learners. This aspect might generate different result than the previous research conducted in East Java, Lombok, and Bandung
which are supposed as more homogeneous. Second, this level of schools and the region has not yet been investigated by the similar
research on cultural content of English textbooks
11
.
10
See Appendix 3
11
See Related Previous Research, p. 37
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B. Problem Identification
Kategori