An Analysis of Conversations in Curriculum-based EFL Textbooks for Senior High School in Indonesia and the Comparison with Corpus-based English Textbooks

Abstract

To achieve the purpose of successful language teaching, the materials should represent the actual use of English to equip learners with communicative skills. In fact, some research has shown that there are mismatches between conversations in textbooks and authentic conversations. Regarding the foreign status of English in Indonesia, it is compelling to further study the conversations in the textbooks enabling for the improvement of the materials. This study examines the characteristics and features of conversations in curriculum-based EFL textbooks for senior high school in Indonesia, namely Bahasa Inggris X, Bahasa Inggris XI, and Bahasa Inggris XII. To profoundly elaborate on this topic, this study identifies conversation features in the textbooks and compares them with characteristics of conversations in three corpus-based English textbooks, Touchstone 1, Touchstone 2, and Touchstone 3. The results show that there are some discrepancies between textbooks in Indonesia with the conversational features and with conversations in corpus-based textbooks. Indonesian EFL textbooks predominantly lack hesitation devices and the use of discourse markers is less varied. In terms of topics, Indonesian EFL textbooks are alike corpus-based textbooks; both focus on everyday topics. The other topics, however, remain problematic since Indonesian EFL textbooks insignificantly talk about school life and mostly talk about social topics and self-topics. Corpus-based textbooks, on the contrary, avoid social topics. These mismatches are inevitably questionable, as conversations in textbooks should exemplify the real conversational features. Pedagogically speaking, textbook writers should consider the naturalness of the conversations to support the EFL teaching practice in Indonesia.