The Readability level of reading texts in the English textbook entitled linked to the world 1 English for senior high school published by Yudhistira

摘要

The teaching of English in Senior High School has become popular nowadays. This fact makes many books writers provide English textbooks for Senior High School which are available in the bookstores. However, it is not easy to choose which book is appropriate for the students. Furthermore, there are various English textbooks based on the new curriculum which its readability must be assessed in order to know their suitability for the students. Hence, this study is conducted. This study is aimed to know and measure the readability level of the reading texts in the English textbook entitled Linked to the World 1 English for Senior High School Grade X first and second semester published by Yudhistira. The writer employed descriptive content analysis since the study described the readability of the textbook, and the subject of the study was the English textbook that contains seven units and each unit has one reading text, so there are seven reading texts in the English textbook. To collect the data, the writer used one kind of instrument, i.e. Flesch readability formula as a measurement device, because this formula is mostly used, simple, and has easy step or direction to analyze. The finding shows that from seven reading texts in the English textbook, only one reading text that is readable and suitable for first grade of Senior High School, it is text 5 with the title Life in Ancient Rome. Whereas text number 1 and 4 are suitable for first grade of Junior High School, text 2 is for second and third grade of Junior High School, text 6 and 7 are suitable for college level, and text 3 is suitable for college graduated. Finally, from this analysis the writer hopes that the writers of English textbook and the publishers use the readability formula as the guidance to measure the readability level of reading texts. Then for English teachers, if they find unreadable text they can change with the synonymous words as the students level.