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 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. 

 Another reason of this significant 

difference is because while there are 

approximately eight to ten activities in a chapter 

of the e-book, there are just two or three reading 

texts in a chapter out of ten chapters in the e-

book.  

 Reading texts in the e-book with its ten 

times appearances of character education values 

range from narrative text, hortatory exposition 

text, analytical text to poem.  

 Character education values can be 

found both in the reading texts and in reading 

components, although the amount may be 

unbalanced.  

 

 

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