Guide for Contributors






MAKING THE BEST USE OF A 
TEXTBOOK IN INDONESIAN TERTIARY EFL 

READING CLASSROOMS1

Anna Marietta da Silva2 

Abstract: Nowadays, EFL reading textbooks have 
adjusted their level of linguistic difficulties to their 
prospective users and provide texts about a variety 
of topics, detailed explanation of reading skills and 
practices, not to mention the smart lay-out and 
good quality of paper, all aiming at facilitating 
both students and teachers to successfully learn 
and teach reading, respectively. However, having 
qualified reading textbooks, teachers cannot take 
for granted that their students will directly 
appreciate reading and the textbook selected for the 
course because in some places extensive reading 
may not be part of the people’s routine, and may 
not be considered to be very important by the 
authority. This article provides several useful 
techniques to take a full advantage of textbooks in 

1 The article has been presented to the Seventh Conference on English 
Studies (Conest 7), November 26-27, 2010, Atma Jaya Catholic University 
of Indonesia, Jakarta. 
2 Anna Marietta da Silva, S.Pd., M.Hum. <anna.silva@atma jaya.ac.id. 
+62215703306 ext. 629 is a full time lecturer at the Department of Applied 
Linguuistics, Graduate School of Atmajaya Catholic University, Jakarta. 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

21 

EFL reading classrooms in the aforementioned 
context. 
Key words: reading textbook, Indonesian context, 
teaching techniques 

 
INTRODUCTION 

 It is fairly common to EFL reading teachers to use 
textbooks given the facts that a vast number of good quality 
English reading textbooks have been written to meet the 
demand of the widespread English as a Foreign Language 
(EFL) reading programs or courses in Asian countries, 
Indonesia inclusively. Excellent books usually present texts of 
various topics ranging from lifestyles to science, with clear 
objectives within each unit, texts of reasonable length adjusted 
to the language proficiency level of the EFL learners, and a 
friendly lay-out including good-quality paper, colorful pages, 
big fonts, a complete reading sequence, explicit and 
comprehensible explanation about each of the reading skills to 
learn along with various practices corresponding to the learned 
skills, not to mention the clear instruction. Hence, using a text 
book, the EFL reading teachers and students may have efficient 
teaching and learning, as well as the warranty of the language 
and content of the text-book as presumptively it has been 
written and edited by the language and teaching specialists.  

However, care should be taken when using textbooks in 
Indonesia, where reading is not a habit, and where English is 
not spoken as a second language. In many EFL classes in 
Indonesia, asking students to read is like having a mountain to 
climb because most students do not appreciate reading even in 
their own native language. The first root cause of the problem 
may be the absence of writing tradition in most cultures in 



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22 

Indonesia: their values and tradition are inherited from one 
generation to another orally. Therefore most Indonesians are 
accustomed to listening to and talking about their ancestors and 
history, instead of reading it.  

The second reason can be the lack of critical reading 
habitude in the national curricula from the New Order in 1966 
where the military-background rulers dominated the country 
until even recently when the civilians came to power since 
1998 in what so called the Reformation Era. From the New 
Order until the Reformation Era the political interference into 
education in the form of heavy emphasis on rote learning (not 
critical learning) cannot be avoided.  

The result is the low appreciation of reading by most 
Indonesian students, including the university students. In 
addition, Indonesians are by and large multilingual people: 
their first language can be their local language, and their second 
language Indonesian. English then becomes a third or maybe 
fourth language; hence its use is very limited, which makes 
students (even those of the English Department) often feel 
nervous when they have to converse, read, let alone write in 
English.  

The circumstance, in some way, directly challenges 
teachers to enable their students go through a process of 
familiarizing themselves to reading academic English texts 
(and why not Indonesian texts too) in the textbooks and other 
sources. Hence, in this paper I will express my personal 
reflection about using a textbook in teaching Reading courses 
to first semester students of the English Department, Faculty of 
Education of Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia. 

 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

23 

DEFINING READING IN AN INDONESIAN EFL 
CLASSROOM   

It is undoubted that reading is not simply glancing at a 
text from the beginning until the end as fast as possible, nor is 
it gazing at a text word by word carefully. Nuttall (1996: 1, 4) 
argued that reading is an activity in which a reader is connected 
with the writer by means of a text: its meaning. That indicates 
reading requires the reader to be able to figure out the meaning 
of the text conveyed by the writer (cf. Hudson 2007: 33). Just 
imagine a painter is connected to a painting lover because of 
the message spread from the painting. Hence, in the process of 
understanding the intended meaning of a text a reader may 
utilize a bottom-up, top-down, or interactive approach. Using 
the bottom-up approach, (Bloomfield 1933 cited in Dubin and 
Bycina 1991: 196); (Goodman 1970 cited in Brown 2001, 
p.298), a reader comprehends a text by making use of her/his 
language capability (Nuttall 1996: 17), a capability which 
according to Brown (2001, p.299) must be ‘sophisticated’, 
which indicates that the reader is versed in “ . . . letters, 
morphemes, syllables, words, phrases, grammatical cues, 
discourse markers . . . “ of the language used in the text.   

The top-down approach, on the contrary, does not rely 
heavily on the linguistic knowledge. The approach enables 
readers to get the meaning of the text by relating their schemata 
to the text and predicting the meaning of the text. Therefore a 
reader is encouraged to use all knowledge and experiences to 
approach the reading text (Dubin and Bycina 1991: 97), 
(Nuttall 1996, p.16), (Brown 2001: 299), and (Hudson 2007: 
33). Factually, a reader needs to combine the two approaches 
because not all readers possess ‘sophisticated’ linguistic 
knowledge, neither do they share the same background 
knowledge or experience relevant to the text, which is why the 



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24 

interactive approach is applicable. In the approach the bottom-
up and top-down approaches are complementary: reading is 
viewed as a ‘bidirectional’ activity in which the reader does not 
only read the text thoroughly by applying her/his linguistic 
knowledge but also uses her/his schemata to make prediction 
prior to reading the text (Dubin and Bycina 1991: 197); 
(Hudson 2007: 34) because prediction functions to activate the 
schemata for an easier comprehension of a text (Nuttall 1996: 
13).  

In the context my EFL Reading classes, I see the 
abovementioned notion positively in a way that despite of the 
low reading habit of most Indonesian students, perhaps 
including mine, I think those who choose English to be their 
major have potential capability in learning a foreign language. 
The clear proof is that they have passed the entrance test 
required by the English Department. Besides that, I believe that 
to a certain point, these young adults have been exposed to 
many readings ranging from Indonesian textbooks, 
announcements, advertisements, letters, and other texts from 
which they would perceive the same thing: meaning.  So, it 
may be rather irrelevant for me (and other teachers, too) to 
always question or debate the low reading habit and the 
government policy. The most important question teachers need 
to raise is then how to deal with such situation and at the same 
time help the students acquire the reading skills. In other 
words, the most important thing teachers should do is to attract 
students’ attention and generate their motivation to read.  

Thus, I think there should be a personal comprehension in 
recognizing what reading is prior to teaching the subject. The 
basic idea is to view reading as a relationship between a reader 
and a writer (Nuttall 1996), as is illustrated in Figure 1.  It is 
shown there that once a person reads any text, she or he is 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

25 

automatically connect her/himself to the message or meaning 
of a text, and indirectly to the writer. In the figure the act of the 
writer’s communication of her/his idea is represented by an 
arrow pointing from the writer to the book, and the reader’s 
action to perceive or interpret the text using her/his linguistic 
knowledge and schemata is symbolized by an arrow that goes 
from the reader to the text.  

The meaning perceived by the reader is represented by an 
arrow that goes from the text to the reader. So, reading is 
always a meaningful two-way communication: every reading 
material from the simplest to the hardest, always have meaning 
and messages conveyed by the writer, which will be received 
by the reader. The implications are first, teachers should make 
use of as many available day-to-day texts as possible, be it in 
Indonesian or English, because people are usually more 
interested in texts that are beneficial for them, i.e. providing 
factual and actual information that will up-date their 
knowledge.  

 

  
         
 

 
writer   reader 

 

Figure 1:  
The connection between a reader and a writer 



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26 

ACHIEVING THE PURPOSE OF AN EFL READING 
PROGRAM USING A TEXTBOOK 

In the context of teaching EFL reading in a university 
level, the purpose of a reading program designed by teachers is 
to enable students to grasp, and interpret the meaning of the 
text in the foreign language adequately by themselves. Yet, an 
adequate reading does not compel students to read every word 
in a text; instead, students simply read what they need in line 
with their purposes. So in the end of the reading program or 
course, students are expected to be motivated to read by 
themselves for any purposes that they wish to accomplish, and 
to make reading as their habit (Nuttall 1996: 31, 171–172). 
Nevertheless, to make students read independently needs a lot 
of effort from both students and teachers, primarily from the 
students, hence making the best use of a textbook.  

In order to create independent readers, students can be 
exposed to and given chances to learn using a number of 
reading strategies while reading the texts. A good textbook will 
clearly present, and explain the strategies, thus enabling 
students to master them. Therefore, it then depends on how the 
teachers transfer the knowledge to the students that the students 
will be reading using the strategies. The first strategy is relating 
schemata to the text, or asking readers to recall their knowledge 
and experience with regard to the topic and content of the text. 
The second way is to skim or to find out the topics and main 
ideas of the text by reading in a glance each first and last 
sentence of the paragraph in the text. The third technique is to 
ask questions about the text in advance, or to stop reading 
temporarily and ask for further clarification and examples. The 
fourth way is to predict the content of the paragraph or text. 
The fifth strategy is to read paragraph by paragraph, or section 
by section, and to take notes while reading. The sixth technique 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

27 

is to scan the text to find out important information, details, 
similarities, and differences. The seventh way is to guess the 
unknown words using all information available in the text, such 
as: context, syntax, morphology, and phonology. The eighth 
way is to study pictures and diagrams provided in the text as 
they function to explain, to clarify, and largely to make readers 
understand a text appropriately. The next way is to make 
inferences from the title and headings. The tenth strategy is 
summarize the text (Knight et al. 1985), (Padron and Waxman 
1988) (Dubin and Bycina 1991: 200), (Gebhard 1996: 199), 
and (Nuttall 1996: 10). In the end, having practiced reading 
using a number of techniques, students should be able to 
automatically choose their preferred techniques to understand 
the meaning of texts, and will expectantly find enjoyment in 
reading, even reading the textbook. 

Therefore, I suggest that teachers should employ the 
textbook in such a way that both teachers and students will not 
be trapped in monotonous teaching and learning process. I 
explored two ways to make use of a textbook so that will 
fruitful for students: 1)“make friend” with and 2)“add a friend” 
to a textbook. I will explain the first.  To “make friend” with 
the textbook and the text means to get to know more about the 
content of the book in general before specifically dealing with 
each text. But for me, making friend here does not merely 
facilitate students’ relationship with the textbook, but also my 
relationship with my students. So, in the initial session of my 
Reading 1 Course, consisting of two classes of 14 and 26 
students, respectively, I firstly asked my students to observe 
their textbooks in detail from the front cover until the back 
cover (Grabe and Stoller 2001: 194) in order to make them 
familiar with the material they will read for one semester. I 
expected that my students would have some curiosities about 
the topics presented in the textbook, which furthermore will 



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encourage them to read the texts. Another purpose of the 
activity was to give an overview of the English academic genre, 
which was absolutely not the same as the genres of the texts my 
students have been familiar with outside the classroom. In 
addition, making friend may also mean applying the interactive 
approach (Dubin and Bycina 1991: 197); (Hudson 2007: 34): 
using schemata to understand a text. Hence, in every class 
meeting, I encouraged students to activate their schemata prior 
to reading because schemata, I think, would directly connect 
students to the text they will read. Using schemata, students 
were given a fair chance to comprehend the texts: they were 
prepared to deal with the text beforehand. So, in the pre-
reading part  I always gave my students a wide opportunity to 
recall whatever they had in mind about the topic text through 
various activities such as giving them questions, playing short 
movies, showing them pictures, playing games, having them 
sharing stories, and experiences or ideas which are relevant to 
the themes of the texts.  

Another feature of “making friend” with the textbook was 
to read the texts enthusiastically as if one was having a 
conversation her/his friend, and in groups as if one was having 
fun together with her/his peers. The underlying reason was that 
teenagers normally prefer to have fun together with their 
friends (friends are very important to them, they sometimes 
may even be more important than their parents and teachers), 
which I then incorporated in my class. Therefore, I never asked 
my students to merely read the texts, and do the exercises 
afterwards, but I require them to read actively (Hudson 2007: 
107–111) with their friends: in pairs or in groups of three to 
four persons (though individual reading was encouraged, too). 
Reading actively means reading for purposes to understand the 
meaning of the text by doing some activities while reading the 
texts. Of course, the activity required an initial explanation 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

29 

about the objectives of the lesson, including the reading skills 
to learn in that session. Because each exercise in the text-book 
used usually focused on one or two particular reading skills, 
instructing students to do the exercises while reading meant 
giving them reasons to read as well as facilitating them to 
acquire the reading skills. The exercises may consist of not 
only the W-H or multiple-choice questions, but also the mind-
mapping tasks, table completion, chart organizing, diagram 
drawing,  making or completing tables or graphic organizers, 
sentence and paragraph completion, matching words with their 
definitions. Another interesting and fun activity was drawing 
the texts (Lindstromberg 2004: 101) in which students were 
asked to draw anything they had in mind about the texts, so 
they might draw the details, main idea, or summary of the text, 
and even their interpretation of the text. Actually the primary 
goals I wished my students to achieve were (1) to familiarize 
themselves with adequate reading, which in turn would make 
them able to read selectively to serve various purposes of 
reading in their daily lives; (2) to train them to comprehend 
texts holistically by recognizing the detailed and general 
information in the text to be able to create a mental framework 
of the text (Dubin and Bycina 1991: 200); (Gebhard 1996: 
199); and (Nuttall 1996: 10); and (3) to avoid boredom and 
sleepiness that will hinder them from getting the meaning of 
the text. 

The last yet, most fascinating feature of “making friend” 
for me was to know my students’ reading habit. So, in our first 
meetings, I distributed simple questionnaires asking about their 
reading background (Appendix 1). The main purpose was to 
avoid holding unrealistic expectation for my students’ success 
in acquiring English reading skills and to prove my general 
presumption that students choosing English to be their major 
should like reading English texts. In addition, I believed that 



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knowing who my students are in relation to their reading like 
and dislike would help me design activities suitable for them, at 
least the ones that are relevant to their interests. Hence, I used 
the simple questionnaire from Grabe and Stoller (2001: 189–
190) which listed several questions asking students’ favorite 
texts, reading frequency, and attitude toward reading itself. The 
questionnaires showed that my students had been accustomed 
to reading mostly Indonesian texts (not English texts), which 
include teen magazines (25%), novels (25%), comics (14%), 
newspaper (13%), internet articles (11%), other texts including 
biographies, books on various topics, and lastly bibles (2%). 
Note that most of the teen magazines are the Indonesian 
versions of world-class magazines, while the novels are 
generally teenage novels or popularly known in Indonesia as 
teen-lit (teen literature). Teen-lit were their favorites here 
because of its choice of topic (usually about love and life of 
teens in big cities) and the language used: conversational 
Indonesian used by youths in cities put in printed version.  
Meanwhile, the newspapers frequently read were those 
published by an Indonesian’s leading newspaper & publishing 
group. Next, as has been predicted, not many of the students 
spend much time to read. Only sixty-eight percent spent 1-10 
hours per week to read; another twenty percent spent 11-20 
hours, and thirteen percent spent 21-30 hours. The fact did not 
seem to be relevant with their confession that sixty-three 
percent of them liked reading (whereas around twenty-eight 
percent read only once in a while, and ten percent did not like 
reading), which may suggest further research. However, my 
students expressed their wishes of being able to read English 
texts, such as magazines, newspapers, fiction novels, classic 
literary works, and biographies. Therefore, I held a positive 
thought: in spite of my students’ unfamiliarity with English 
texts, they had had a certain degree of reading Indonesian texts 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

31 

and desires to read in English fluently which hopefully would 
motivate them learning the reading skills in English.  

Secondly, teachers can also “add a friend” (inspired by 
the “add a friend” option in Facebook™ social e-networking) 
to the textbook, which in this context means providing 
supplementary texts relevant to the topics presented in the 
textbook. In my classes, I always provided students with 
various real-life texts (Nuttall 1996: 170, 172, 177; Nation 
2006: 6) ranging from blurps of novels, advertisement, stories, 
newspaper or magazine articles, application, goods packaging 
information which they have to scan, skim, paraphrase, infer, 
interpret or summarize (Nuttall 1996: 204–206). I gave special 
emphasis on Indonesian newspaper articles that may directly 
appeal to students’ interest, such as articles about national or 
international public figures, trendy lifestyles, successful young 
people, or up-to-date and unique events. There were two 
reasons for that: (1) I wanted to tell my students that Indonesian 
newspaper or e-newspaper can be interesting reading materials, 
(2) I intended to make them befriended with sources from 
which they can read other issues about the national and global 
economics, politics, society and culture once they feel the need 
of knowing such issues, and (3) research has shown that there 
is a positive relationship between the success in reading in L1 
and L2 (Nuttall 1996: 58) and (Hudson 2007: 65–74). In 
addition, I specifically focused on English magazine articles 
telling about Indonesian popular stars and whereabouts. My 
goal was to show to my students that they may start befriended 
with English texts whose topics they have known, so that they 
would not feel numb before the texts, nor find it difficult to 
understand them. On top of that, realizing that they could 
understand English texts easily (even if they were about 
common topics), students would unconsciously become 



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confident of taking the next challenge: dealing with other 
readings in English.  

The last aspect of “add a friend” to a textbook is by 
having students do the independent reading or Sustained Silent 
Reading (Krashen 2003: 18); (Nation 2009: 5) for around thirty 
to forty minutes after they had completed reading the 
complementary and supplementary texts. Purposively, I 
supplied my students with around sixty books in Indonesian 
and English (mostly in Indonesian) such as novels, short 
stories, poems, plays, biographies, comics, histories, exhibition 
catalogue, and guide books. The provision of Indonesian books 
was based on two reasons: first, research has shown that 
learning L2 can be facilitated by L1 (as I have mentioned in the 
previous paragraph), and second, students, who are accustomed 
to Indonesian texts, need relatively some time to be familiar 
with English texts. Implicitly, I directed my students to be free 
to decide when they were ready to take the challenge reading 
the English texts. Hence, students were allowed to bring their 
own reading materials to read in the classroom during the 
independent reading session. Besides that, they were also 
permitted to borrow the books that I collected. All in all, I 
encouraged students to be familiar with various possible texts 
they might deal with in their daily life to serve their individual 
reading purposes. 

 

CONCLUSION 
To sum up, reading does not mean understanding a text 

word by word, nor does it mean loud reading. Reading goes 
beyond that: to understand the meaning conveyed in a text is 
the heart of reading. In an EFL Reading Course the purpose is 
to create independent readers who are highly motivated to read 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

33 

because they feel the need of and find pleasures in reading. 
Though making Indonesian students enjoy reading is not 
something that teachers can do with one hand tied behind their 
back because of the cultural and political reasons that should 
not make teachers give up. Instead, with a good textbook 
available nowadays, teachers need to redefine reading in 
Indonesian TEFL context. Bearing in mind that reading a text is 
connecting a reader to a writer through the medium of the 
meaning of a text, teachers need to employ the texts presented 
in the textbook and the supplementary texts by active reading 
and applying a number of reading strategies so that students 
will not think and feel that using a textbook is tedious. In such 
effort teachers should always remember that it is the message 
of the text that students should explore maximally. Hence, 
textbook should be manipulated in a way that it will ease the 
teaching learning activities. 

 
REFERENCES: 
Brown, H. D. Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to 

Language Pedagogy, 2nd ed. New York: Pearson, 2001. 

Da Silva, Anna M. “Fun learning with textbook in a reading course”. 
Paper presented to Seventh Conference on English Studies 
(CONEST 7), Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, 
Jakarta, 26-27 November 2010.    

Dubin, F. and Bycina, D. “Academic reading and the ESL/EFL 
teacher”. In M. Celce-Murcia, Teaching English as a second 
or foreign language, 2nd ed. Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 1991: 
195-215.  

Gebhard, J. G. Teaching English as a Foreign or Second Language. 
Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1996. 



    Celt, Volume 13, Number 1, July 2013 : 20-42         
                                    

 

34 

Grabe, W. and Stoller, F. L. “Reading for academic purposes: 
Guidelines for the ESL/EFL teacher”. In M. Celce-Murcia, 
Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 3rd ed. 
Boston: Heinle & Heinle, 2001: 187-203.  

Hudson, T. Teaching Second Sanguage Reading. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2007. 

Knight, S., Padron, Y. and Waxman, H. C. “The cognitive reading 
strategies of ESL students”. In TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 19. No. 
4, 1985: 789-792. 

Krashen, S. D. Explorations in Language Acquisition. Portsmouth: 
Heinemann, 2003. 

Lindstromberg, S. Language Activities for Teenagers.  Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2004. 

Nation, I. S. P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL Reading and Writing. 
New York: Routledge, 2009. 

Nuttall, C. Teaching Reading Skills in a Foreign Language. Oxford: 
Heinemann, 1996. 

Padron, Y. and Waxman, H.C. “The effect of ESL students 
perceptions of their cognitive strategies on reading 
achievements”. In TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1, 1998: 
146-150. 

Appendix 1: 

Table of students reading background 
No. Stu-

dents 
Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

1 AB 3-4 magazines Magazine: 
Slam 
Newspaper: 
Jakarta 

I enjoy 
reading 
because I can 
get more 

Anything  



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

35 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

Post Book:- information. 
2 AK 21 novels, 

comics 
Magazine: 
Animaster 
Newspaper: 
C n R  
Book: 
Harry 
Potter 
novels 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it 
opens my 
mind. 

Literature 

3 AL + 6 novels, 
magazines 

Magazine: 
Teen 
Vogue, 
Cosmo Girl 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
children’s 
bed time 
stories 

I enjoy 
reading but it 
depends on 
my mood and 
the book. 

Shakespear
’s work 

4 AMA + 4 comics Magazine:- 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
Detective 
Conan 
comics, 
kung fu 
comics 

I enjoy 
reading as it 
makes me 
feel better 
when I feel 
bored and 
confused 
about 
something. 

Biographies 
of famous 
bands 

5 AT 14 novels, 
magazines, 
comics 

Magazine: 
Go Girl, 
Asian Hits, 
Asian Star 
Newspaper: 
A Plus  
Book: Ilana 
Tan’s and 
Orizuka’s 
novels, 
Chicken 
Soup series 

I enjoy 
reading as it 
can stimulate 
my 
imagination 
and creativity. 

Novels, 
comics, and 
magazines 

6 AW 14 novels, 
website, 
magazines 

Magazine: 
Gadis 
Newspaper:

I enjoy 
reading 
sometimes 

Anything 



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36 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

- Book: 
teen novel, 
Shinchan 
comics 

just to kill the 
time. 

7 BMP 20-24 news, novel Magazine: 
Chic 
Newspaper: 
Kompas, 
Bola 
Book: 
novels by 
Dan 
Brown, and 
Dewi 
“Dee” 
Lestari 

I like reading. Fables and 
folklores 

8 CS 21 e-articles Magazine: 
Harper’s 
Bazaar, 
Vogue Teen  
Others: 
Facebook, 
Twitter, 
websites on 
facts, & 
gossips 

I sometimes 
enjoy reading 
when the 
topic is 
interesting for 
me. 

Fashion 
magazine 

9 ELV 20 novels Magazine: 
Go Girl  
Newspaper: 
-Book: 
Twilight 
Saga 

I enjoy 
reading as it 
can refresh 
my brain. 

Shakespear
’s work 

10 F 2 novels, 
comics, 
magazines 

Magazine: 
Asian Plus 
Newspaper: 
Kompas 
Book: 
Bible 

I sometimes 
enjoy reading, 
depending on 
the book. 

Newspaper 
and novels 

11 IA 3 magazines Magazine: 
GoGirl, 
Gadis 
Newspaper:

I enjoy 
reading 
because I can 
get more 

Novel 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

37 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

- Book:- information 
and 
knowledge. 

12 IBC 2 magazine, 
book about 
traveling 

Magazine: 
Men’s 
Health 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
traveling 
book 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it 
will improve 
my 
knowledge 
and inspire 
me to do 
things. 

History 

13 IN 14 magazines, 
novels, 
comic, 
website 

Magazine: 
Girlfriend 
Newspaper: 
-  
Book: 
inspiring 
novels, 
comics 

I enjoy 
reading as it 
can broaden 
my horizon 
and relaxing 
my mind. 
 

Dictionary 
and 
newspaper 

14 KB 2-3 bible Magazine: 
Bobo 
Newspaper: 
Kompas  
Book: 
Bible 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it’s 
interesting, 
fun and 
increase my 
knowledge. 

Announce
ment 

15 KLL 2 comics Magazine:- 
Newspaper:  
Bola 
Book: - 

No, I prefer 
listening or 
watching 
things. 

Harry 
Potter and 
Lord of the 
Ring novels 

16 LERF 14 novels, 
comics 

Magazine: 
High End 
Teen 
Newspaper: 
Kompas 
Book: 
humorous 
books 

I enjoy 
reading my 
favorite 
books. 

Humorous 
books 

27 LW 5 e-articles Magazine:-
Newspaper: 
-  

I enjoy 
reading as it 
gives me 

News about 
sports, 
lifestyle 



    Celt, Volume 13, Number 1, July 2013 : 20-42         
                                    

 

38 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

Book: - information 
in my leisure 
time. 

and 
technology 

18 LWW 3 magazines, 
novels  

Magazine: 
Kawanku, 
Cosmogirl, 
other teen 
magazines 
Newspaper: 
Kompas 
Book: 
Novels by 
Raditya 
Dika 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it can 
reduce stress 
and it’s 
entertaining. 

Teenage 
novels 

19 MCW + 1 magazine, 
books 
about 
interior 
design, 
books 
about 
psychology 

Magazine: 
GoGirl, 
CosmoGirl 
Newspaper: 
Kompas, 
Jakarta 
Post 
Book:- 

I don’t enjoy 
reading 
because I 
don’t like 
reading too 
much. 

Books 
about kids 

20 MLP 24 novels, 
magazine, 
comic, 

Magazine: 
Gadis, 
GoGirl, 
B’Girl, 
Kingdom 
Newspaper: 
- 
Book: 
teenlit 
novels, 
Twilight 
Saga 
novels, 
romantic 
comics 

I enjoy 
reading. 

NA 

21 MS 3 on-line 
magazines, 
novels, 
newspaper 

Magazine:- 
Newspaper: 
Kompas  
Book: 
romantic or 

I enjoy 
reading 
sometimes, 
depending on 
the 

Shakespear
’s work, 
Harry 
Potter 
novels.  



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

39 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

funny 
novels 
 

circumstance 
around me. 

22 NAS 14 teen novels Magazine:- 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
teen novels 
 

I enjoy 
reading teen 
novels as I 
can have free 
imagination. 

NA 

23 NC 3 magazines, 
e-articles, 
newspaper 

Magazine: 
Cosmo Girl 
Newspaper: 
Kompas 
Book: Go 
Ask to Alice 
 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it can 
help you find 
things you 
don’t know 
before. 

Many 
things 

24 NC 3 teen novels, 
comics 

Magazine: 
Cover Girl 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
Harry 
Potter 
novels, 
Detective 
Conan 
comics 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it can 
make me 
relax and 
forget my 
problem. 

Harry 
Potter 
novels 

25 NS 3 newspaper: 
lifestyle 
section 

Magazine: 
Go Girl  
Newspaper: 
Seputar 
Indonesia  
Book: 
Harry 
Potter and 
Twilight 
Saga 
novels 

Sometimes I 
enjoy reading 
because I 
don’t like 
reading very 
much. 

Biographies 

26 NW 4 novels Magazine: 
Bazaar, 
Chic 
Newspaper: 
- 
Book: 

I enjoy 
reading. 

Novels 



    Celt, Volume 13, Number 1, July 2013 : 20-42         
                                    

 

40 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

fiction 
novels 

27 PKH 14 newspaper, 
scientific 
texts 

Magazine:- 
Newspaper: 
Kompas  
Book: - 
 

I enjoy 
reading. 

Newspaper 

28 RC 2 spiritual 
books, 
bibles 

Magazine:- 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
Your Face 
Tells all 

I don’t enjoy 
reading too 
much because 
I prefer 
watching to 
reading. 

Entertainin
g reading 
materials 

29 RDP 3 novels, 
magazines 

Magazine: 
Gadis, 
GoGirl 
Newspaper: 
Kompas  
Book: 
Chicken 
Soup for 
Teenage 
Soul 

I enjoy 
reading as it 
can give us 
knowledge 
and entertain 
us. 

Novels 

30 RP 3 magazine Magazine: 
teen 
magazines 
Newspaper:
- Book:- 

I sometimes 
enjoy reading, 
depending on 
the book or 
magazine I 
read. 

Biographies 

31 S 10 newspaper, 
lesson 
books 

Magazine: 
F1 Racing 
Newspaper: 
Kompas 
Book: - 

I sometimes 
enjoy reading 
when the 
topic is 
interesting for 
me. 

Science 

32 SE 29 novels Magazine: 
Go Girl  
Newspaper: 
-Book: 
Anne of 
Green 
Gables 

I enjoy 
reading very 
much. I’m a 
book worm. 

Pride & 
Prejudice, 
Anna 
Karenina, 
Midsummer 
Night 
Dream 



                                A. M. Da Silva, Making the Best Use of a Textbook 
 
 

41 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

series, 
books 
about 
music 

33 TA 3 horror 
comics, 
running 
texts, 
newspaper 

Magazine: 
Intisari 
Newspaper:
- Book: 
horror 
comics 
 

I sometimes 
enjoy reading, 
depending on 
the 
book/topic. 

NA 

34 TL 9 newspaper Magazine:-
Newspaper: 
Book: - 

I enjoy 
reading 
because I can 
get much 
information 
and 
intermezzo. 

Anything 

35 TS 1 Yahoo 
articles 

Magazine:- 
Newspaper:
- Book:- 

I enjoy 
reading as I 
can update 
my 
knowledge. 

Newspaper 

36 VE 14 books 
about art 

Magazine:- 
Newspaper:
- Book:- 

I enjoy 
reading books 
about art as it 
inspires my 
imagination. 

Poems 

37 X 2 magazines, 
internet, 
books 

Magazine: 
Computer 
Newspaper: 
Kompas 
Book: 
comics 
 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it can 
improve my 
knowledge. 

Bible 

38 YL 4 novels Magazine: 
Cosmopolit
an Girl 
Newspaper:
- Book: 

I enjoy 
reading as I 
can know 
about things I 
don’t know 

Twilight 
Saga 



    Celt, Volume 13, Number 1, July 2013 : 20-42         
                                    

 

42 

No. Stu-
dents 

Time 
spent 
for 
readin
g per 
week 
(in 
hours) 

Materials 
students 
usually 
read 

Favorite 
magazine/ 
newspaper
/ book/ 
others 

Attitude 
toward 
reading 

English 
texts 
students 
wish to 
read when 
they can 
read easily 
in English 

Alita at 
First 

before. 

39 YNA 3 newspaper, 
novels, 
magazines 

Magazine: 
any 
Newspaper: 
any  
Book: any 

I enjoy 
reading 
because it 
trains your 
brain and test 
your 
knowledge. 

The Count 
of Monte 
Cristo 

40 YW 5 magazines Magazine: 
Girlfriend 
Newspaper:
- Book:- 

I don’t really 
enjoy reading. 

Thick 
novels