Evaluating the Readability and Suitability of Reading Texts in the Textbook "English for Change" for 11th Grade Students.

Feby Dwi Rahmi; An Fauzia Rozani Syafei

doi:10.24036/jelt.v14i2.133460

Evaluating the Readability and Suitability of Reading Texts in the Textbook "English for Change" for 11th Grade Students.

Feby Dwi Rahmi⁽¹⁾, An Fauzia Rozani Syafei⁽²⁾,
(1) Universitas Negeri Padang

Indonesia
(2) Universitas Negeri Padang

Indonesia

Corresponding Author
Copyright (c) 2025 Feby Dwi Rahmi

DOI : https://doi.org/10.24036/jelt.v14i2.133460

Full Text:

Language : en

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the readability and suitability of reading texts in the textbook “English for Change” used for eleventh-grade students in Indonesia. A descriptive quantitative approach was used in this study. The sources of data in this study are reading texts from the English for Change textbook for Grade 11 and students’ responses collected through a questionnaire. The instruments were Flesch Reading Ease formula to measure the readability level and a questionnaire to evaluate the suitability of the reading texts based on students’ cultural relevance, linguistic proficiency, and cognitive engagement. The questionnaires consisted of 15 statements with a Likert scale. The questionnaire was given to 40 students as the sample from the population of eleventh grade students. The findings show that from twenty analyzed texts only three text, text 3 (54), text 7 (55) and text 12 (50) are appropriately readable for grade 11. These findings indicate a lack of consistency in the textbook’s readability. While some texts fall at or just below the target level for 11th-grade students, a significant portion is either too simple or far too complex. Students have a positive perception toward the suitability of reading texts with a mean score of students’ cultural relevance (3.31), linguistics proficiency (3.07), and cognitive and emotional engagement (3.25).

Keywords

Readability, Suitability, Cultural Relevance, Linguistic Proficiency, Cognitive Engagement.

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