1 ELT FORUM 2 (1) (2013) English Language Teaching Forum http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt CHARACTER EDUCATION VALUES IN READING SECTION OF E- ENGLISH TEXTBOOK FOR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS GRADE XI Pratama Lysa Hapsari Department of English, Faculty Language and Arts, Semarang State University, Indonesia Info Artikel ________________ SejarahArtikel: DiterimaJanuari 2013 DisetujuiFebruari 2013 DipublikasikanJuni 2013 ________________ Keywords: Character Education, Reading Section, E-book ____________________ Abstract ___________________________________________________________________ The main purpose of the study is to find out what character values are integrated in reading section of the English e-book of Senior High School and in which part of the English e-book of Senior High School the character values are realized. In order to obtain the objective of the study, I did several steps. I selected the e-book and then the reading section was selected. After selecting the reading section, the character education values integrated in the reading section were identified. Then, I identified the character education values in the reading section components; whether they are integrated in reading texts or reading exercises. From the eighteen character values formulated by The Indonesian Ministry of National Education 2010, there are only seventeen of them covered in reading section of the e-book. These seventeen values are honesty, tolerance, democracy, hard work, creativity, environmental caring, social caring, discipline, patriotism, nationalism, respect achievement, loving peace, reading habit, independence, religious, curiosity, and friendly/communicative. One character value that is not covered in reading sections is responsibility. All the character values found are covered in both components of the reading sections. After analyzing, I would like to suggest for the next researcher who attempts to do the similar research as I do. He/she should analyze the textbook which is recommended by the Book Centre (Pusbuk) of the National Education Ministry (Depdiknas) so that his/ her research will have a great possibility to be used as a consideration to select a good textbook for teaching and learning processes at schools. © 2013UniversitasNegeri Semarang Alamatkorespondensi: GedungB3Lantai3 FBSUnnes KampusSekaran, Gunungpati, Semarang, 50229 E-mail: tamalee9@gmail.com ISSN 2252-6706 Pratama Lysa Hapsari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 2 INTRODUCTION Character development has long been one of the goals of national education. National Education Act, 2003, Clause I states that one of the national education goals is to develop the learner’s potential, intelligence, personality, and noble character. In this case, education is intended not only to establish intelligence, but also to develop personality or character. Adolescence is a transition phase that everybody has between the puberty and adulthood. In this phase, they try to find out who they truly are. It is the time for them to form their identities. With the right guide, adolescents can avoid drug use, irresponsible sexual encounters, and other psychological and behavioral disorders. It is important for teachers to help them to go through this phase which mostly happens in their school time because most of them spend more time at school and with their friends than what it takes to have a proper communication with their parents. Character education can be applied in a variety of elements that exist in schools, for example in schools’ curriculum and syllabus in teachers’ lesson plans, materials, and media. In this curriculum, character building can be embodied into almost every subject. It is also can be embodied in lesson plan where there are indicators and measurement, the values of character building can be integrated and then it can be implemented into learning activities. Character education can also be implemented in the learning materials so that when the teacher teaches the material to the students, it is not only the material itself that is conveyed, but also the character education values as well. In education, textbook holds important role. For students, the textbook is one of the sources of information and an effective tool to increase their experiences. For teachers, the material presented in textbooks may be used as consideration in teaching. For example, as the materials chosen and compiled with material from other sources. A few years ago, the government initiated to publish Buku Sekolah Elektronik (BSE) which is textbook in a form of electronic, hence the name e-book. This new step from the government aims at coping with the lacks of nationally standardized textbooks which are usually too expensive to afford by most schools. Since then, these e-books have been widely used in schools because of the cheap price, if not free at all. The presence of e-books as a handbook of teachers and students in schools also determines the success of learning. E-book contains material as a source of learning, so that they also serve as a learning tool to support a program of learning. For that, as a medium that can be used to infuse character education to learners, e-books must also contain the values of character education. Therefore, e-books are the most effective media into which we can integrate character education values. Besides the materials, teachers can convey the character education values while they are teaching the students. In English textbook, there are four skills in which students are usually taught with. They are reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Reading education in Indonesia begins from the earliest level of education. Besides getting the help from the teachers, most of the materials students get in schools come from reading their textbooks. Reading is always a part of a textbook. More than a half of materials in textbooks usually even come from this reading part. In reading section of a textbook, students can find so much information. This condition makes reading an effective medium to embody character education values into. Students will not only get information for their studies, but they can also learn good character values to help stirring them to the right path through their adolescence. The facts above lead my curiosity to conduct a research to observe character education integrated in reading part of English e- book for Senior High School. In this case, I will Pratama Lysa Hapsari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 3 concern more on the reading part of the e-book of Senior High School. METHOD In this study, I chose reading texts and reading exercises of reading sections in Developing English Competencies as the object of the study. I wanted to find out what character education values are found in reading sections of the analyzed textbook. I also wanted to find out in what component character education values are incorporated, whether in the reading texts or in the student exercises. I applied some steps in collecting the data. a) Selecting the Textbook The textbook that I chose is an e-book published by Pusat Perbukuan Departemen Pendidikan Nasional or The Book Center of National Education Ministry. It can be easily downloaded from internet through www.bse- depdiknas.co.id. I choose an English textbook for Senior High School students grade XI entitled Developing English Competencies. b) Selecting the Reading Section The next step was selecting some reading sections from the book. c) Procedure of Analyzing Data There are several steps in the procedure of analyzing the data in this study, they are: (1) Reading The first step is reading the e-book, especially the reading sections and the exercises. (2) Identifying From the reading sections and the exercises in the e-book, the identified data will be put into a data card. RESULT AND DISCUSSION This sub chapter deals with the findings of the study. In other words, it deals with the result of the data analysis. There are fifty four data that has been collected and analyzed. To strengthen the data analysis, the percentage is counted by formula as stated below. X = the percentages of each type of character values in reading section N = the number of each type of character values in reading section Σ N= the total number of character values in reading section The complete findings which answer the statements of the problems are as follows: 1. The Character Education Values which are Incorporated in Reading Sections After analyzing the data, I found that the reading sections of “Developing English Competencies” for grade XI covers only seventeen of eighteen character education values which are formulated by The Indonesian Ministry of National Education 2010. The character education values which are covered in reading sections are tolerance, discipline, hard working, creativity, independence, patriotism, friendliness and communicativeness, pleasure for reading, environmental caring, democracy, religiousness, honesty, curiosity, nationalism, respecting achievement, and social caring. The character value which is not covered in reading sections is responsibility. The analyzed data are shown in the following table. By the table below, the character values which appear in reading sections of “Developing English Competencies” for grade XI will be obvious. Table 1. Percentage of Character Education Values No Character Values Percentage 1 Honesty 24.79% 2 Tolerance 24.79% 3 Democracy 21.37% 4 Hard Working 4.27% 5 Environmental Caring 4.27% 6 Social Caring 3.42% 7 Discipline 3.42% X = N x 100% ∑N http://www.bse-depdiknas.co.id/ http://www.bse-depdiknas.co.id/ Pratama Lysa Hapsari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 4 8 Curiosity 1.71% 9 Religiousness 1.71% 10 Creativity 1.71% 11 Respecting Achievement 1.71% 12 Loving peace 1.71% 13 Pleasure for reading 1.71% 14 Independence 0.85% 15 Nationalism 0.85% 16 Patriotism 0.85% 17 Friendliness/Comm unicativeness 0.85% 18 Responsibility 0.00% Three character values which are honesty, tolerance, and democracy dominate the chart by more than a half of the total sum of the character values found in the e-book. These three character values which are mostly found in the reading exercises are important values to learn by students while they are communicating with their friends, especially when they are doing some exercises together. In the fourth place, there is hard work which is good to prepare students to face the world where the one who works hard will survive. The early implementation of hard work in Indonesian schools is currently still underestimated compared to those in developed countries. For instance, Indonesian students are not used to working part time jobs during their holidays, and most students ask for money from their parents to pay their school fee. This value will teach them to respect the hard work of those around them and try to apply this value to their own lives. Environmental caring which appears next is currently a currently phenomenal topic with all the global warming issues. Students will learn to love nature and preserve it, which is an excellent idea considering Indonesia is one of the countries who have large part of forests and seas. The next character value that appears is social caring. This value and discipline have both the same score in the chart. Social caring, in relation with the way students communicate to and have the sensitivities for those around them that are not as lucky as they are, is an important value to be taught in schools where most of their social lives occur. While discipline is also so important considering the culture in our country in which discipline is undermined like that hard work value, it is not properly taught to children. Most students used to the idea of being late in doing everything, from arriving at school to handing in their tasks. This value will teach them how to be disciplined in their lives. The next five values have the same score in the chart; they are curiosity, creativity, being religious, respecting achievement, and loving peace. The next values barely appear at all in the e- book. They are reading habit, independence, nationalism, patriotism, and friendliness/communicativeness. Responsibility does not appear at all in the e-book which is most unfortunate considering this is a significant value. 2. The Character Education Values’ Appearance in Reading Sections Components This sub chapter would like to answer the second problem statements, in what component of reading sections the character values are realized. The reading sections of “Developing English Competencies” for grade XI consist of two components. They are reading text and reading exercises. The analyzed data are shown in the following table. By the table below, the values which appear in certain component of reading section of “Developing English Competencies” for grade XI will be obvious. Table 2. Percentage of Value Appearance in Reading Section Components No Reading Section Components Percentage 1 Reading Exercises 81.48% 2 Reading Texts 18.52% Pratama Lysa Hapsari / Journal of English Language Teaching 2 (1) (2013) 5 The character education values appear forty four times or 81.48% in the e-book; this exceeds the amount of character education values that are found in the reading texts with ten or 18.52% appearances. One of the reasons why the character education values are found mostly in reading exercises is because that the three most frequently appearing character education values which are honesty, tolerance, and democracy, have tendencies to appear in the reading exercises. With all of the massive amounts of pair works, group works, club project and reviews, these characters surpass the other values, which increase the amount of character values found in this component of the reading section. 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