understand different types of texts; and 4 knowing how to maintain communication despite having limitation in one‟s
language knowledge. It means that students need to know how to use language according to its purpose and functions in many
different situations. They also need to consider whom they talk to and where the communication happens.
CLT emphasizes learner-centeredness and the use of original or authentic material. Referred to CLT, the original
material is the powerful tool for the communicative classroom in which in textbook, it is accordingly encouraged to cover the
original material in textbook design. According to Howatt 1984, CLT is divided into strong and weak versions. „The strong version
is in support of communicative features whereas the weak version suggests the integration of structural practice into the
communicative elements‟ Chung, 2005. In other words, in strong version, the original material is strongly encouraged to use in
textbook. Thus, textbooks should contain authentic materials to support the students to reach their communicative competence in
order to be able to produce appropriate communications.
c. Textbook Evaluation
As textbooks are mostly used in language teaching and learning process, students in general tend to put expectations that
textbooks should have more credibility than their teacher. Students
expect that textbooks will guide them well in their language production. In response to the desire of the students, curriculum
and syllabus designing should be based on the componential and pragmatic evaluation that requires to be done considering the needs
of analysis of a particular group of students. Tomlinson 2010 points out that a big potential disadvantage of using textbooks is
that only a minority of textbook writers have actually applied language acquisition principles when writing the materials
Reynolds 1974, Tomlinson 2010. Many of them instead rely on their intuition as to what they perceive is best for language learning
Tomlinson 2008. Thus, to fulfill the students‟ needs, textbooks evaluation is needed.
Besides, a number of studies have suggested that most current global, local ELT textbooks are developed for commercial
purposes but are not based on principles of language acquisitions and development recommended by scholars and educators
Tomlinson, 2003, 2008 2010. Instead of focusing on how learners could actually benefit from using the textbook, textbook
writers relied on their intuition and produce materials what they think would work best for their intended users Tomlinson, 2008:7.
They are biased towards perceived rather than actual needs of learners Tomlinson, 2003:3. These fact is added by the fact that
the teachers become totally reliant on the textbook Ur 1996, and
