READABILITY OF READING MATERIALS IN KEMENDIKBUD ENGLISH

TEXTBOOK REVISED 2016 FOR THE TENTH GRADE STUDENTS OF

COMPUTER AND NETWORK ENGINEERING PROGRAM

AT SMKN 1 DOLOK MASIHUL

*Gita Auviar Zuhri

**Nora Ronita Dewi, S.Pd., S.S., M.Hum.

ABSTRACT

This study was aimed to describe the readability level of the reading materials in

Kemendikbud English textbook revised 2016 for the tenth grade students of

computer and network engineering program written by Utami Widiati, et al. The

design of this research is used descriptive qualitative research. The subject of this

research is Kemendikbud English textbook revised 2016 for the tenth grade

students of computer and network engineering and an English teacher at SMKN 1

Dolok Masihul. The instruments of the data collection in this study were interview

and Flesch Reading Ease Formula. The researcher analyse the data to get

judgment from professional teacher by interview and analyse the reading

materials in textbook used Flesch Reading Ease Formula to determine the level of

readability. Therefore, the researcher takes a conclusion that the result of

interviewing English teacher was the students ability in comprehend the reading

texts still low and the readability of reading materials in the textbook fairly

difficult to comprehend by the students and the result of the data analysis by using

Flesch Reading Ease formula indicates that the texts can be categorized; fairly

easy, fairly difficult and difficult.

Keywords: Textbook, Reading Materials, Readability, Flesch Reading Ease

Formula.

*Graduate Status

** Lecturer Status

INTRODUCTION

Background of Study

Learning English is important, especially for Vocational High School

students who are going to face the real working field right after graduating from

schools. In learning English, there are four skills that have to be mastered by the

students; they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. One of the skills is

important in order that people get easier to obtain information from written text is

reading. Reading is the skill that is learnt when people studies foreign language in

educational institution. By reading people will be able to get many kinds of

information or knowledge whether it from magazine, newspaper, books, notes,

memos, letters, specifications, regulations, journals or manuals reports. It also

includes forms that contain at least one paragraph of text. There are kind of

reading texts in English Learning such as narrative text, recount text, Descriptive

text, report text, explanation text, news item, spoof text, analytical exposition text,

discussion text and review text. Based on Curriculum 2013, there are three kinds

of texts in syllabus for the first year students of senior high school/ vocational

high school; they are descriptive text, recount text, and narrative text.

One of the main components in a curriculum is textbooks. They determine

many aspects such as the content, the procedures, the methods for teaching and

learning. They also have a systematic syllabus for teachers to follow in teaching.

Textbooks usually published by authorized publishers. In addition, the

government of Indonesia tries to make curriculums periodically which suit the

demands in the global era. Several options of English language textbook are

available under the guidance of National Curriculum Standards in Indonesia. The

Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia has provided English language

textbook for every level which originally published in the form of electronic book

and freely printed by educators. This kind of English textbook is mostly used by

the teacher and students to teach English lessons especially for those who teach in

public school.

In the Regulation of The Minister of Education and Culture Number 71 of

2014 about the textbook lessons and teacher guides for Primary and Secondary

education. Textbooks are generally sensitive to the students’ needs; it should be

well designed and well-written so it can be used effectively in the teaching

learning process. A good English textbook is readable, understandable and

comprehensible for students. They are easy to read and understand. It will

motivate them to learn English.

Besides considering the criteria of a good textbook according to some

experts, the teacher must know the appropriate materials to teach. The choice of

the materials in English textbooks can determine the quality of teaching. Because

there are many English textbooks are offered by many publishers, even most of

the textbooks are use standard of curriculum (Kurikulum 2013). Teachers should

be able to choose the best one.

One of the methods to help the teacher choosing appropriate reading

materials English textbook for the student is by considering the readability of

reading material found in the textbook. Dubay (2004) states that readability is

what make some texts easier to read than other. It means that readability refers to

the difficulty level of the written text based on the level of the students’

educational background. According to Richards (1992), readability means how

easily written materials can be read and understood. This depends on several

factors including the average length, the number of new words contained

sentences, and the grammatical complexity of the language used in a passage.

Those are the parts to measure the readability level of the reading text (Richards,

1992:30). Analysing the readability level of reading materials can also help the

teacher to predict whether the text is difficult, plain, or easy for the students.

To support the selection of suitable textbook, teachers need to see if the

texts in the textbook are readable and suitable with the students’ reading level.

There are three points of view in selecting text for reading material; they are

readability, suitability of content, and exploitability (Nutall, 1982). According to

Schulz (1982) there are three ways in measuring the readability level of the

reading texts those are, by using the instructor’s judgment, comprehension testing

by cloze procedure, and the last by using statistical readability formulas based on

some types of tally of linguistic elements.

After knowing that selecting a textbook is important, the researcher tries to

make a research about it. To answer and understand about the readability of

reading materials in a textbook, she visited SMKN 1 Dolok Masihul to asking

permission to do observation on Monday, 2nd

March 2020. After she got

permission, the researcher met the English teacher and discussed when the

English teacher has spare time to do interview. On Wednesday, 4th

March 2020,

the researcher visited the school to interviewing the English teacher. The

researcher asked the teacher some questions about which the reading materials in

English textbook which is used by the computer and network engineering students

especially at the tenth grade of the school. The researcher chose the tenth grade

students especially in computer and network engineering program because she

considered if the tenth grade of computer and network engineering program is

better than the eleventh grade and twelfth grade in this research.

As mention above the researcher got the preliminary data from

interviewing the English teacher about which textbook used in teaching and

learning process, the English teacher states there is only one textbook that they

used in teaching learning process especially for teaching reading materials, the

English textbook entitled “Bahasa Inggris” for SMA/MA/SMK/MAK grade X.

This book is student books that prepared by the Government for the

implementation of the Curriculum 2013 revised year 2016 written by Utami

Widiati, et al. This students’ book is prepared and reviewed by the coordination of

the Ministry of Education and Culture Indonesia and is used in the early stages of

applying the Curriculum 2013. In teaching reading, the English teacher applied

cooperative learning strategy and divided students into group discussion of 4-5

students. She said that almost all of the students have same problem in learning

reading especially reading several kinds of texts in textbook. The students have

difficult to comprehend the reading materials in textbook and not interest to

reading the texts, it also because the reading materials are not suitable for them.

Based on the situation above, the researcher is interested to conduct a

study entitled “Readability of Reading Materials in Kemendikbud English

Textbook Revised 2016 for the Tenth Grade Students of Computer and Network

Engineering Program at SMKN 1 Dolok Masihul”. Therefore, this study aimed to

describe the readability level of the reading materials on that textbook especially

on the tenth grade students according to their educational levels.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Theoretical Framework

Nuttal (as cited in Saragih, 2016) reading is the result of interaction

between the perceptions of symbols that represent language with the language

skills, cognitive skills, and the knowledge of the readers. A reader is expected to

create the meaning which intended by a writer. Reading can be defined as the way

to draw information from a text and to from an interpretation of the information

(Grabe & L. Stoller, 2002:4). Therefore, reading is a result of an interaction

between readers’ perception of symbol which represent language and knowledge

to understand the text and to get information.

Reading comprehension is the core and goal of reading, since the purpose

of all reading is to gather meaning from printed page. Dakin (2013:9) states that

reading comprehension is an interactive process between the reader and the test

and how the reader interprets the writer’s use of language will determine what

meaning they will derive from that particular piece of writing.

Reading material refers to any texts or passage that brings certain message

or ideas to be shared to the reader through the process of reading activity, in

preparing the material there many aspects to be considered.

According to Tomlinson (1999), textbook is the learning material that is

primarily used by teacher and students. In another definition, textbook is a manual

of instruction or a standard book in any branch of study which is produced

according to the demands of educational institutions.

Descriptive text is the way to describe or to illustrate the object, person or

idea that the readers can see the object, or person, or idea by their eyes physically

(Dirgeyasa, 2016: 56). Recount text is a text that retelling or recounting of events

or experiences in the past (Saragih, 2016: 45). Dirgeyasa (2016:16) state that

narrative text is a text to amuse, entertain, and to deal with actual of various

experiences in different ways.

Curriculum is a plan, which contains everything related to how the content

for course is transformed into teaching learning process and has main goal to the

school or education desire.

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987:19) ESP as an approach rather

than as a product, by which means that ESP does not involve a particular kind of

language or methodology, and does not consists of a particular type of teaching

material. Then, ESP is an approach to language teaching which the contents and

methods as the decisions should base on learners’ reason for learning.

In terms of foreign language, English is considered as the important part

for supporting students’ vocational competence. Based on the Curriculum 2013

(K13), English in vocational high school is categorized as a compulsory subject. It

means that vocational high school students must learn English and achieve the

competences that have been listed in the curriculum.

Readability is one of the most important aspects in understanding or

comprehension the text that should be considered in selecting a good passage for

the students. Readability is what makes some texts easier to read than others do

(Dubay, 2004). It means that readability refers to the difficulty level of the written

text based on the level of the students’ educational background.

There are some factors can influence readability of written text. These

factors involve reader interest, vocabulary, typical of text, levels of reader, easy

word, the short of sentences and simple grammatical.

Basically, readability level of reading material can be measured by three

ways: giving judgment, giving cloze test, and using readability formula. Based on

those three ways, the researcher decided to use readability formula in assessing

readability. Principally, readability formula is an instrument to estimate the

difficulty level in understanding the reading material.

Based on the seven types of readability formula, the researcher intended to

use Flesch Reading Ease Formula in measuring the readability of reading material

in the English textbook published by Kemendikbud revised 2016.

The Flesch Reading Ease Readability Formula is one of the oldest and

most accurate. It was developed in 1948 by Rudolph Flesch who is an author and

a reading consultant. The Flesch Reading Ease readability formula calculates an

index score of a text sample based on number of words, sentences length and the

number of syllables. It is a simple approach to assessing the grade-level of

readers. This formula is best suited for school text.

Conceptual Framework

Reading is one of the important skills which have to be mastered by the

students. In teaching-learning process, students will be provides some teaching

materials from textbook especially for reading materials that the students expected

to comprehend the meaning of the texts. Nuttal states that there are three criteria

of a good reading text for students, they are follows; (1) Suitability of content, (2)

Exploitability, and (3) Readability. Readability is the degree of difficulty or ease

of a text that can be understood by the readers. It deals with how easily a text

conveys its intended meaning to a reader of that text.

Depend on the preliminary data that the researcher got from interviewing

the English teacher about which textbook used in teaching and learning process,

the English teacher states there is only one textbook that they used in teaching

learning process especially for teaching reading materials. She also said that

almost all of the students have same problem in learning reading especially

reading several kinds of texts in textbook. And the students have difficulty to

comprehend the reading materials in textbook.

It shows that teacher must consider when they present their students a

reading text that have the right readability level for students can help them in the

teaching reading process and the wrong selection can discourage them to learn the

materials especially for the tenth grade students of computer and network

engineering program at SMKN 1 Dolok Masihul.

In this study, the researcher conducted research by first collecting data by

interviewing the English teacher and analysing the readability of reading materials

in the textbook by using Flesch Reading Ease Formula of Readability. After that

the results are obtained, the researcher can describe the readability score in

Kemendikbud English textbook revised 2016 that used by the tenth grade students

of computer and network engineering at SMKN 1 Dolok Masihul.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

The design of this research is used descriptive qualitative research to find

out the result of research question. Ahmadi (2014) stated that qualitative method

is used when the research aims to describe phenomena; and the data used are

opinion (interview), behaviour, and document which are not analysed using

statistics. Data collection of the qualitative descriptive studies focuses on finding

the nature of the specific events research. Data collection also may include

observations, and examination of records, reports, photographs, and documents.

This research used qualitative descriptive design means the data collected by

using document study. The purpose of qualitative research is to describe a

situation. The main point of this research is collected the data onto descriptive

way. It describes the readability level of reading materials in textbook.

This study is conducted in SMKN 1 Dolok Masihul. This research focused

on English textbook published by Kemendikbud revised 2016 that use in teaching

reading material for students of computer and network engineering program.

SMKN 1 Dolok Masihul is located at Jl. Antara Lingk VII Kel. Pekan Dolok

Masihul, Pekan Dolok Masihul, Kec. Dolok Masihul, Kab. Serdang Bedagai.

Techniques of Analysis Data

In this research, researcher do two analyses. Firstly, researcher analysed

the data to get judgment from professional teacher by interview. The step to

analyze the data is as follows:

1. The researcher transcribes the result of the interview;

2. The researcher read the teacher’s interview transcription answer briefly;

3. The researcher make a resume of the interview answer;

4. The researcher describe the judgment points of the teacher into a

descriptive analysis.

Secondly, the researcher used Flesch Reading Ease Formula because this

formula is the easiest one to measure the readability of reading texts. To make the

analysing easier, the researcher obtained the ways to analyse the data is as

follows;

1. Count the sentences on full units of speech marked by a period, colon,

semicolon, dash, question mark, or exclamation point as one sentence.

2. Count the words in the up to 100. Its process before count, than

determine as one word for numbers, symbols, contractions, hyphenated words,

abbreviations, figures, and their combination that are surrounded by one space.

After counting the 100th

words, put a mark.

3. Count the syllables as the pronounced, for example: here has one

syllable, number consists of two, and combination consists of four syllables. If a

word has two accepted pronunciations, use the one with fewer syllables.

4. Count the average sentence length, the number of words divided by the

number of sentences.

5. Count the average syllables per words, the number of syllables divided

by the number of words.

6. Count the readability score by using the formula. The formula for the

Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) test is:

RE = 206.835 – (1.015 x ASL) – (84.6 x ASW)

Note:

RE = Readability Ease

ASL= Average Sentence Length (i.e., the number of words divided by the number

of sentences)

ASW= Average number of syllables per word (i.e., the number of syllables

divided by the number of words).

7. Analyse the readability score of the reading texts.

The readability score shows on Flesch Reading Ease score, is as follows;

Reading Ease Score Style School Level

90-100 Very Easy 5th grade

80-89 Easy 6th grade

70-79 Fairly Easy 7th grade

60-69 Standard 8th - 9th grade

50-59 Fairly difficult 10th – 12th grade

30-49 Difficult 13th – 16th grade

0-29 Very difficult College graduate

RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

Research Findings

In order to collect the data about readability of reading material, the

researcher was interviewing an English teacher to get her professional judgement.

The resume of interviewing the English teacher, the students have difficulties in

comprehending reading materials in the textbook because their lack in

vocabularies and basic in English still low. Teacher has to select appropriate

reading material refers to their level whether the texts in textbook is standard

according to the government.

The researcher analysed an English textbook entitled “BAHASA INGGRIS

SMA/MA/MAK FOR GRADE X ”published by The Ministry of Education and

Culture of Indonesia in 2016 especially the reading texts. In order to facilitate the

process of teaching and learning, this textbook is dedicated for the tenth grade

students of computer and network engineering program at SMKN 1 Dolok

Masihul.

The textbook consist of 224 pages and 15 chapters. The whole chapters

contains reading materials but only chapter 4, 5 ,8, 9, 10, 11 and 13 contain

reading texts. In this research, the researcher only focused on analyzing the

reading materials. There are three kinds of genre in the textbook, they are;

descriptive text, recount text, and narrative text. In descriptive text, there are three

reading texts, they are; “Tanjung Puting National Park”, “Taj Mahal” and

“Visiting Niagara Falls”. In recount text, there are four reading texts, they are;

“Meeting My Idol”, “B. J. Habibie”, “The Battle of Surabaya” and “Cut Nyak

Dien”. In narrative text, there are two reading texts, they are; “Issumboshi” and

“The Legend of Malin Kundang”. There fore, there are 9 reading texts that the

reseacher analysed.

The result of measuring the readability level is three texts appropriate to

the students’ educational level 10th

-12th

grade. The rest of the texts are not

appropriate to the students’ educational background. However, from the table

above the mean of the Reading Ease Score 57.17 that it is estimated for the 10th

-

12th

grade students.

Discussion

The result of the data analyzed by interviewing an English teacher to get

her judgement on the textbook entitled “Bahasa Inggris” for

SMA/MA/SMK/MAK grade X published by The Ministry of Education and

Culture of Indonesia revised year 2016 written by Utami Widiati, et al. She was

consider that the students ability in comprehend the reading texts because they are

lacks of vocabularies, pronunciation, difficult to comprehend long functional text,

and their Basic English still low. In line, she stated that the readability of reading

materials in the textbook is fairly difficult to comprehend depends to the students’

ability in reading skill. However, the English textbook refers to the government

which is the English textbook level certainly standard for the tenth grade students.

The result of the data analyzed by using Flesch Reading Ease Formula,

there were 9 reading texts in the textbook of “Bahasa Inggris” for

SMA/MA/SMK/MAK grade X published by The Ministry of Education and

Culture of Indonesia revised year 2016 written by Utami Widiati, et al. was

classified into three levels, it as follows;

1) Fairly easy, the readability score is 70-79. There are three texts in

this level; they are text 4 “Meeting My Idol” has score 71.65, text

8 “Issumboshi” has score 72.54 and text 9 “The Legend of Malin

Kundang” has score 74.59. Those are estimated for 7th

grade.

2) Fairly difficult, the readability score is 50-59. There are three texts

in this level; they are text 1 “Tanjung Puting National Park” has

score 52.50, text 2 “Taj Mahal” has score 56.46 and text 7 “Cut

Nyak Dien” has score 58.54. Those are estimated 10th

– 12th

grade.

3) Difficult, the readability score is 30-49. There are three texts in

this level; they are text 3 “Visiting Niagara Falls” has score

47.43,, text 5 “B. J. Habibie” has score 41.57 and text 6 “The

Battle of Surabaya” has score 39.25. Those are estimated 13th

–

16th

grade.

It can be concluded that there are three levels of redability in the textbook

entitled “Bahasa Inggris” for SMA/MA/SMK/MAK grade X published by The

Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia revised year 2016 for Computer

and Network Engineering program, They are; fairly easy, fairly difficult and

difficult.

There are three texts appropriate to the students’ educational level 10th -

12th grade. They are as follows;

1) Text 1 “Tanjung Puting National Park” (descriptive text) with

Reading Ease Score 52.50 that classified into fairly difficult.

2) Text 2 “Taj Mahal” (descriptive text) with the Reading Ease Score

56.46 that classified into fairly difficult.

3) Text 7 “Cut Nyak Dien” (recount text) with Reading Ease Score

58.54 that classified into fairly difficult.

The rest of the texts are not appropriate to the students’ educational

background. However, from the table above the mean of the Reading Ease Score

57.17 that it is estimated for the 10th -12th grade students.

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Conclusions

After conducting the research, the result of the data analysis through

interviewing English teacher, she was consider that the students ability in

comprehend the reading texts still low and the readability of reading materials in

the textbook fairly difficult to comprehend by the students. However, it refers to

the government the English textbook level is actually standard for the tenth grade

students. The result of the data analysis by using Flesch Reading Ease formula

indicates that the texts can be categorized; fairly easy, fairly difficult and difficult.

Based on the whole of texts in the textbook, there are only three texts appropriate

to the students’ educational level 10th

-12th

grade. The rest of the texts are not

appropriate to the students’ educational background. However, from the table

above the mean of the Reading Ease Score 57.17 that it is estimated for the 10th

-

12th

grade students.

Suggestions

Considering the importance of this study, there are two suggestions which

are expected to be meaningful for English teacher and students. Theoretically, the

findings of this research can give information in selecting appropriate reading

materials for students. Practically, for teachers, it is useful for the English teachers

to understand about the readability of reading materials that given to the students.

If it appropriate with the students’ level, it can influence the students to improve

their reading comprehension. For students, they need to build up their reading

comprehension skill by reading many English books. And for other researchers, it

is recommended to other researchers because there are many other textbooks

offered by other publishers and also there are other types of readability tests and

other readability formulas to be analyse.

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