THE COMPARISON BETWEEN INDONESIA AND ANOTHER COUNTRY IN USING TEACHING MATERIALS

 MEUTIA HERZA PUTRI

18018069 / K1-18

ELTMM

COMPARISON ESSAY

THE COMPARISON BETWEEN INDONESIA AND ANOTHER COUNTRY IN USING TEACHING MATERIALS

            English is a universal language that is always used in communicating globally. Learning English in high school, therefore, is a must in all countries. Not only for countries that make English as a foreign language but countries that make English as the official languages such as UK, USA, and Australia. In the English learning process, teachers use teaching materials such as a textbook, workbook, video learning, and audio learning in facilitating the learning. According to Grave (1999), the aim of using teaching materials in learning is to help learners get a better understanding of learning a subject. In countries that make English as a foreign language; Indonesia and Japan use the workbook as their teaching material since it is considered more effective than others. For 7th grade, in Indonesia, they use a kurtilas kemendikbud―When English Rings a Bell― workbook; while in Japan, they use New Horizon English Book 1 (Tokyo Sasheki). In this essay, the writer is going to compare those workbooks in two aspects: lessons and tasks of unit 1 within those workbooks.

             The first aspect of comparison is the lessons of unit 1 within those workbooks. In the Indonesian workbook, they just focus on speaking and reading skills. This book starts with learning about greeting, saying goodbye, thanking, apologizing, and how to respond to it. Then the teacher asks students to read some expressions and a role-play passage in the book. Unit 1 of the Horizon Book, on other hand, focuses on speaking, listening, and reading skills. The students learn about basic English like alphabets, numbers, months, and greetings. They also listen to the proper pronunciation through the audio workbook. Then the students read some greeting expressions what is in the book.

            The second aspect of comparison is the tasks of unit 1 within those workbooks. In Indonesia, they are adding a skill, namely reading. In reading, the students are asked to read an expression and answer it with the response. Then they do a role-play in pair based on the topic in the book. Meanwhile, the Horizon English book provides writing, speaking, and listening tasks. In writing, the students are asked to write down a sentence properly since they usually use kanji or hiragana in writing. Seems like the Indonesian workbook, in speaking, the students do a role-play based on the topic in the book. And for listening, the students are asked to listen to the audiobook and match the answer in the book.

        In conclusion, there are no significant differences between the Indonesian workbook and the Japanese workbook. Those are equally focused on writing, reading, speaking, and listening skills do not provide the grammar part. Furthermore, the New Horizon book focuses on basic English, meanwhile, the When English Rings a Bell book is directly on greeting, saying goodbye, thanking, and apologizing expressions. Equally important, the audio workbook facilitates the New Horizon book. Then, The New Horizon book uses mixed–Japanese and English– language while the When English Rings a Bell book uses full English.