Locally-developed vs. Global Textbooks: An Evaluation of Cultural Content in Textbooks Used in ELT in Malaysia

Rahim, Hajar Abdul; Daghigh, Ali Jalalian

doi:10.1080/13488678.2019.1669301

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…English in Mind written by foreign authors, predominantly emphasizes the target culture. It aligned with previous studies investigating global textbooks (Baleghizadeh & Amiri Shayesteh, 2020;Chao, 2011;Rahim & Daghigh, 2020;Shah et al, 2014;Shin et al, 2011;Yuen, 2011). Besides, it provided international culture with a smaller number than the target culture.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

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The cultural content and intercultural communicative competence in the global and local textbooks used in Indonesian EFL classes

Agustina

Kencana

2023

J. Eng. Foreign. Lang.

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A number of studies on the cultural content represented in local or global textbooks have increasingly been investigated. However, it is scanty research comparing local and global textbooks. This study aims to examine two textbooks determined by the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture, a global textbook entitled English in Mind for schools implementing a new curriculum called Merdeka curriculum and a local textbook, When English Rings a Bell, for schools that have not applied it. The study employed content analysis as a research design. The results show that the global textbook provides more on target culture, but the local textbook highly emphasizes source culture and neglects international cultures. In addition, the global textbook concerns social and environmental themes, while the local textbook focuses more on religion/humanities/art and personal theme. Further, the global textbook does not accommodate adequate intercultural communicative competence, which was absent in the local textbook. The imbalanced cultural representations in those textbooks affect students’ intercultural competence. The study suggests the practical implications of providing students with sufficient references to the target, source, and international cultures to promote their intercultural competence.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Moreover, the result differed from Silvia's (2015) that the local textbook balanced source, target, and international culture. Further, the study was in line with Rahim and Daghigh (2020) that the source culture was dominant but their finding showed that target and international culture were included in the local textbook.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 55%

The cultural content and intercultural communicative competence in the global and local textbooks used in Indonesian EFL classes

Agustina

Kencana

2023

J. Eng. Foreign. Lang.

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“…With regards to its content, imported English language textbooks are deemed as irrelevant to local English learners due to their imbalanced and mismatched cultural content (Sabbiri, 2019;Din & Yamat, 2020;Hadi & Shah, 2020;Nazari & Aziz, 2020;Takal et al, 2021). Rahim and Daghigh (2019) who analyzed the cultural content of English textbooks in Malaysia found out that 'PULSE 2' textbook offers zero content that relates to the Malaysian culture. This is a huge departure from the previously used English textbook for Form 1 students in Malaysia, 'English Form 1', where almost two-third of its contents focus on the local culture.…”

Section: Imbalanced Cultural Contentmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of Imported CEFR-aligned English Language Textbooks in Malaysian Schools: Issues and Concerns

Shak¹,

Albakri²,

Tahir³

et al. 2021

IJARBSS

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Imported English language textbooks were introduced in Malaysian schools as part of the Common European Framework Reference of Language (CEFR)'s roll-out in this country through the establishment of the Standards Based English Language Curriculum (SBELC), which is the official English language curriculum in Malaysia. However, concerns were raised with regards to the use of these textbooks. Despite advocates clamoring for the textbooks' alignment to the CEFR and their contents, critiques were quick to point out their imbalanced cultural content, high lexical density, lack of supplementary materials, steep price point, ambiguous selection procedure, and fitness with the goals and objective of Malaysia's language program and English curriculum. Doubts were also expressed about Malaysian English teachers' preparedness to teach by using these books. It is then suggested that English language textbooks' selection procedure in Malaysia to be refined through the establishment of a systematic and transparent textbook evaluation framework. This will help in streamlining future English language textbooks selection and development processes in Malaysia while preventing any unnecessary outcry in future.

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“…The second indicator of the importance of sufficient density of lexis an English textbook has to provide in its materials. These are two critical indicators of English textbook selection or textbook development that deserve consideration besides other indicators of English textbook that other studies have worked on, for instance, the indicators of vocabulary items (Zawahreh, 2012), morphology (Roth, 2017), grammar (Lee, 2006), multimodal resources (Joo et al, 2019;Subakir et al, 2012), cultural contents (Pashmforoosh & Babaii, 2015;Rahim & Daghigh, 2019;Shin et al, 2011;Su, 2014;Zhili, 2014), multiculturalism (Babaii & Sheikhi, 2017;Bhandari, 2019;Cho & Park, 2014;Setyono & Widodo, 2019), language ideologies (Xiong & Qian, 2012), world Englishes paradigm (Alcoberes, 2016), the paradigm of English as an international language (Ke, 2012;Thuy et al, 2020), global Englishes paradigm (Syrbe & Rose, 2017); moral education (Feng, 2017), students' needs (Rashidi & Kehtarfard, 2014), and the values of peace (Gebregeorgis, 2016). The present study contributes to providing important highlights of appropriate genre distribution and lexical density.…”

Section: Lexical Density Of Reading Texts In English Alive Textbookmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For this reason, the processes of English teaching and learning in the context of Indonesia are established to embed more students' competencies in written communication through instilling be mapped into several themes. Some prior studies conducted textbook analyses in terms of linguistics such as vocabulary items (Zawahreh, 2012), morphology (Roth, 2017), and grammar (Lee, 2006); multimodal resources (Joo et al, 2019;Subakir et al, 2012); cultural content (Pashmforoosh & Babaii, 2015;Rahim & Daghigh, 2019;Shin et al, 2011;Su, 2014;Zhili, 2014); multiculturality (Babaii & Sheikhi, 2017;Bhandari, 2019;Cho & Park, 2014;Setyono & Widodo, 2019); the status of English such as language ideologies (Xiong & Qian, 2012), world Englishes paradigm (Alcoberes, 2016), English as an international language (Ke, 2012;Thuy et al, 2020), and global Englishes paradigm (Syrbe & Rose, 2017); and humanity such as moral education (Feng, 2017), students' needs (Rashidi & Kehtarfard, 2014), and the values of peace (Gebregeorgis, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of English Alive Textbook in Terms of Genres and Lexical Density

Noviyenti

2021

AIJP

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The current study aimed at analyzing an English textbook titled English Alive used by English teachers from some senior high schools in Curup, Bengkulu, Indonesia. The textbook analysis was oriented towards two domains, namely genres and lexical density, by applying a content analysis method. This study revealed that the English Alive textbook had five genres: reading materials in the narrative, report, analytical exposition, spoof, and hortatory exposition. Those genres were embedded in sixteen passages distributed to the entire textbook, and those passages were mapped into ten units. Lexical density measurement indicated that most of the passages were categorized as easy to be comprehended, and a few passages were categorized as too easy to be comprehended. However, text genres in this textbook did not sufficiently conform to the distribution of English reading materials as suggested by the K-13 curriculum. Some reading passages did not seem contributive to students’ English acquisition according to comprehensible input theory and other related findings. Hence, the English Alive textbook could be used in today’s context and needs as supplementary material, but the primary reading materials should be resting upon K-13-driven English textbooks. Strength and weaknesses were also identified from the English Alive textbook. The former could be noted that this textbook adopted the constructivism theory and genre-based approach properly. However, the latter indicated that the provision of genre materials did not entirely conform to essential competencies formulated in the current K-13 curriculum of English education. Further studies could analyze more textbooks to help teachers choose appropriate English textbooks.

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Locally-developed vs. Global Textbooks: An Evaluation of Cultural Content in Textbooks Used in ELT in Malaysia

Cited by 28 publications

References 29 publications

The cultural content and intercultural communicative competence in the global and local textbooks used in Indonesian EFL classes

The cultural content and intercultural communicative competence in the global and local textbooks used in Indonesian EFL classes

The Use of Imported CEFR-aligned English Language Textbooks in Malaysian Schools: Issues and Concerns

Analysis of English Alive Textbook in Terms of Genres and Lexical Density

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