



































JUDUL DALAM BAHASA INDONESIA, DITULIS DENGAN HURUF TNR-14 BOLD, MAKSIMAL 14 KATA, RATA KIRI


English Language Teaching Educational Journal (ELTEJ) 
Vol. 1, No. 2, 2018, pp. 76-96 
E-ISSN: 2621-6485   

  
 

 

Developing Culture-Based  

English Instructional Materials for Grade VII of  

Junior High School Students 

 
1Wiwiek Afifah, 2Darmiyati Zuchdi 

Graduate School of Yogyakarta State University 
1wiwiekafifah.2018@student.uny.ac.id 

 
Abstract 

The research aims at developing culture-based English instructional materials (henceforth, 

CBEIM) for grade VII of Junior High School students and reveal its final product 

representation in terms of its effectiveness. The research design was a research and 

development. The procedure of product development consisted of conducting needs 

analysis, designing course grids, developing the first draft, implementing the final draft, and 

evaluating the final product. The product implementation consisted of the 1st tryout 

involving 4 students from Yogyakarta State Junior High School (henceforth, Y-SJHS) 10, 

the 2nd tryout involving 34 students from Y-SJHS 7, and there were 68 students involved in 

the 3rd tryout. They were from Y-SJHS 9 and Y-SJHS 10. The data were collected by using 

evaluation sheets, an English achievement test, questionnaire to measure students’ level of 

internalization and actualization toward culture values, and questionnaires for teachers’ 

responses. The data were analyzed by t-test using paired and independent sample with the 

gain score. The research finding reveals: 1) based on the content expert validation, CBEIM 

was very good by the aspect of content, language, learning, culture, presentation, and 

graphical design, whereas based on the graphical design expert, CBEIM was good. 2) 

Having been implemented, the final product representation was proven to be effective. The 

students in the experiment classes got a higher improvement than those in the control 

classes. The statistical calculation of independent samples test with gain score of the 

English test from the two groups shows the t values of 2.931 with the p = 0.004 < 0.05, 

while the t-test for equality of means of culture values, t value reached 2.524 and its 

significance of 2-tailed reached p = 0.037 < 0.05, alpha value (α=0.05). Since the gain score 

is smaller than 0.05, CBEIM demonstrates that it can show a significant difference between 

the experiment and control classess in encouraging students to internalize and actualize the 

culture values. 

  

Keywords:  culture, internalization, actualization, instructional materials 

 

 

How to Cite: Afifah, W. and Zuchdi, D. (2018). Developing culture-based English 

instructional materials for grade VII of Junior High School Students. English Language 

Teaching Educational Journal, 1(2), 76-96. 

  

 



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INTRODUCTION 

      The problem of school gang fights, bullying, and drug-abuse frequently 

appeared in the mass media. Those matters of fact are the evidence of  low level 

of Indonesian morality. Add to this, there are several factors supporting the 

complicated conditions such as scarcity of values implementation. In fact, the 

flawed culture which is going to be sinking can be well made by bringing an 

education amongst them. It is because the education means the process of a 

culture establishment (Zuchdi, 2009). Responding to the worrying problems, 

being a part of education components, it is a must for us to think about 

developing appropriate instructional materials equipped with positive culture 

values dedicated to the students. This idea is supported by some scholars who 

admitted that instructional materials bring an important role in teaching and 

learning process. Tan-Florendo (2012) states that teachers can use instructional 

materials when planning and carrying out instruction in such a way that they 

are undoubtedly important as teaching resource materials. Regard to this, 

Murphey (1992) as cited by Lorenzutti, (2014) says that since there are some 

elements in culture such as social values, human relationship, spiritually, 

patriotism and dissent and these can be used to train and to grow students’ 

feeling of empathy, honesty, politeness, wisdom, discipline, caring, loyalty, 

indeed, it can be practiced as a mediation to build a character. In line with 

Murphey’s idea, Peacock (1998) as cited by Saifer, et al. (2011) reported that 

when the school acknowledged and taught cultural heritages, it had a significant 

success in educating the students. Kanoksilapatham (2014) also reported that 

developing young learners in grade 4 by using local culture awareness and 

global English as an integrated instruction could reach a higher gain score. In 

line with the finding of positive responses toward the culture-based tasks, 

Doganay, Ashirimbetova, & Davis (2013) also proved that students increased 

their English communicative competences and cultural sensibility. Based on the 

previous studies, culture had proven to be one of the leading ways to teach 

English as a foreign language.   

      Dealing with teaching materials, Tomlinson (2008) and Dudley-Evans & Jo 

(1998) highlight that materials should be framed into an interesting, motivating, 

stimulating on never ending communication and question-answer, even 

including activities which can encourage learners to optimize the environment 

outside their classrooms. Tomlinson (2012) also states that materials refer to 

“anything that can be used to facilitate learning of a language. Add to the idea, 

Nation & Macalister (2010) suggest applying three principles in developing 

language textbook: 1) it serves substantial quantities of interesting 

comprehensible inputs. 2) Language textbook should provide activities aimed 

to increase fluency, and 3) language textbook, especially for English as foreign 

language textbook should spend focusing on using the target language. 

Furthermore, Atkinson (2012) highlights that “if culture is considerably more 

dynamic and negotiated than previously believed, then language is close 

behind”. Ho (2009) also points out that “language and culture have inextricable 

and dependent relationship”. Moreover Kramsch (1998) in Ho (2009) 

emphasizes that since language shows kind of expressions and able to 



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symbolize cultural reality, it makes language and culture are bounded together. 

Grave (2001) also stated that language is used in a context and learners use it 

by considering the purpose, style, register, and topic. There are many studies 

dealing with culture and language teaching. It is in line with the statement 

conveyed by her that “the role of culture in language learning is receiving 

increasing attention”, thus Damen (1986) as cited by Grave (2001) names 

culture as the fifth dimension of language teaching. Whereas Kramsch (1993) 

explains that culture will be created and represented through the dialogue 

between students and students and between students and teachers. Syatrian, et 

al. (2013) also gave a recommendation that students would easily comprehend 

the materials when the instructional materials or course books were developed 

based on the local contents and students’ needs. However, they suggested that 

those materials should be enriched with international contents. Thereby, 

students could improve their language skills and teachers were assisted in 

choosing kind of teaching materials to support their teaching and learning 

process.  

 However, the government textbook entitled Bahasa Inggris When English 

Rings a Bell (2013) as the compulsory student’s textbook used in Junior High 

School did not fully match to the students’ needs. Based on the interview on 15 

of July 2014 with some Yogyakarta English teachers, the students have varying 

needs. Their current needs are vocabulary enrichment, reading text, grammar, 

speaking and listening materials, wide range of games, and even moral values 

to support their mental development process while learning English. The 

students particularly who were in the early years of JHS were still in a low level 

of independence, having variety of English language skill provision, low 

grammar mastery, and low literacy. It was indeed that the government textbook 

has contained some picture illustrations and gave positive effects for the young 

learners. The pictures appeared in most of the pages of the textbook could 

stimulate them to produce the target language. Yet, the language inputs were 

served in isolated contexts. Take for example, the songs that were served in the 

pages of 2, 23, 41, 66, 83, 104, 135 were not meaningful and effective to 

support students’ understanding and actualizing toward the culture values. 

Otherwise, they were modified with cultural values activities such as 

comparing the two cultures: Indonesian and English cultures. It must be much 

more meaningful for students learning English as a foreign language learning. 

Furthermore, some researches done by Mursyida (2015), Hariyantina, 

Arifuddin, & Djuhaeni (2016) also revealed that the textbook was lack of 

productive skill materials such as no listening materials. Even the textbook 

contained materials that were irrelevant to the curriculum of 2013 syllabus. 

 To point out, developing culture-based English instructional materials for 

Grade VII of JHS needs to be developed. It is expected to support the process 

of English teaching and learning as well as encouraging and motivating 

students to internalize and actualize positive culture values. Having learnt 

English with culture-based instructional materials, students are expected to 

improve their English skills as well as their level of morality.  



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 Based on the former ideas, the problems are formulated into: 1) how are the 

culture-based English instructional materials for Grade VII of Junior High 

School Students developed and 2) how is the final product of the culture-based 

English instructional materials for grade VII of Junior High School students 

represented in terms of its effectiveness. 

 

RESEARCH METHOD 

The research design applied was Research and Development (R&D) which 

aimed to develop a product of culture-based English instructional materials 

modifying of a model developed by Dick, Carey, & Carey (2005). The model is 

adapted into five steps: analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate. 

Operationally the implementation was conducted as tryout design and expected 

to find out the effectiveness of the product. The tryout was designed by 

conducting pretest-posttest class group control. The tryout design appeared in 

Table 1.  

 

Table 1. Tryout Design 

Class Pretest Treatment Posttest 

A T1 X a T2 

B  T1 X b T2 

 

   Subjects of the need’s analysis and product implementation were students 

from Y-SJHS of 7, 9, and 10. The underlying consideration was those schools 

almost had the same characteristics. Their visions were almost similar. They 

supported their students to be well behaved, having environment awareness, 

smart, well cultured, having achievement based on a good faith, love the state, 

and having a higher feeling of nationality. Thus, based on these reasons, the 

three schools deserved to have the same goals in educating their students and 

they were agreeable to the purpose of the research. The English teachers who 

taught in the seventh grade had also been certified by the government as well as 

upgraded to their professionality. The chosen experiment and control classes for 

the last product evaluation were from Y-SJHS of 9 and 10. The two groups of 

classes were chosen based on the English teachers’ information. Furthermore, 

the students of the classes had the same characteristic such as some were active, 

but some were not. As an addition, students in those classes also had low-level 

appreciation to the culture values such as, coming late joining the class, having a 

low attention to the learning process. Therefore, it can be concluded that the 

class dynamics, the low-level of internalization and actualization toward culture 

values in the two classes were almost the same. They could be used as the 

consideration in the experiment phase in order to judge the textbook’ quality in 

term of its effectiveness. 

  Data collection techniques and instruments used in the research were 

instrument to evaluate the product, needs analysis instrument, English test items, 

and culture values questionnaire. The data were analyzed using a Likert scale 

type and t-test with gain score. The entirely instruments were deserved to be 

valid since they had been validated based on content and construct validity.  



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Research Result and Development 
  In developing CBEIM, the procedure was started by analyzing the students’ 

needs, designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating. The analyzing 

meant the effort to know the factual condition of the schools. The way to 

conduct the 1st step was by observing the teaching and learning process in some 

classes, discussing with some teachers, and distributing the questionnaires of the 

need analysis in the last session of the meeting. Having got the data of the need’s 

analysis, the product was started to be designed.  

  The summary of need analyses result is presented in Table 2 and the culture 

that was chosen to be integrated in the textbook was culture proposed by 

Lorenzutti (2015). He proposed that culture values referred to how people learnt 

to have social awareness, human relationship, spiritual, patriotism, and to grow 

the feeling of empathy, honesty, politeness, wisdom, discipline, caring, and 

loyalty. Yet, realizing a wide range of cultures proposed by Lorenzutti, then the 

culture values integrated in the culture-based English textbook were taken from 

the highest percentage chosen by the students.  

 

Table 2. The Result of Need Analysis 

 

No 

 

Most Preferred Topics Integrated in Culture 

 

Number 

of 

Student

s 

 

 

Percent

ages 

 

1 Politeness, responsibility, discipline in a family 

and society. 

 

67 70.53% 

2 Knowing some historical things from Indonesia 

and English such as temples, traditional farming 

tools, traditional weapons, traditional dances, 

games for children, and any other local creativities 

serving a local wisdom.  

67 70.53% 

3 Visiting a friend who is sick, helping each other, 

working together. 

41 43.16% 

4 Indonesian traditional foods, religious ceremony, 

tools in daily activities, traditional house, and 

some other things related to human creativities.  

 

52 54.74% 

5 Knowing some unique or characteristic names 

from Indonesia and from Western people. 

28 29.47% 

7. Being discipline in family, school, classroom, and 

in the larger environment.  

52 54.74% 

8. Knowing the local, national, and international 

heroes.  

67 70.53% 

9. Realizing the important of being honest in any 

situations. 

52 54.74% 



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  Designing as the 2nd step of the procedure was the effort to prepare the 

blueprint as the product guideline. It was a course grid design consisting of some 

aspects. The function of the course grid design automatically was used for 

guiding the researcher in developing the product in order to be appropriate and 

match to the students’ needs.  

  The 3rd step was developing the blueprint. The consideration in developing it 

was to interconnect between the learning approach adapted in the research, 

culture values, and the result of students’ needs within the contents of 

instructional material. After finishing the rough draft of developing instructional 

materials, then the product was validated by the content experts. The criteria to 

recruit the content experts in the research were those whose background 

knowledge in curriculum and material development, teaching English as a 

foreign language, and graphical design. They were Prof. Sugirin, Ph. D., Joko 

Priyana, Ph.D., and Setyo Adi Purwanto, M.Pd. Before the product was 

implemented to the classroom, the teachers also attempted to show their 

responses to the product. Having finished those steps, then the product 

implementation was held in the three schools.  

  The purpose of product implementation was to find out the empirical data on 

how the product was used by the students in the class involving many students. 

The implementation of the research product took six times including pretest and 

posttest. The implementation was done in 19th of February until 2nd April 2015. 

The numbers of the students in the experiment class were 68 and 67 in the 

control class. The experiment class consisted of 30 boys and 38 girls while in the 

control classes there were 33 boys and 34 girls. The following table shows the 

quantity of the students in those classes. 

 

Table 3. School & Students Involved in Tryout 

School Experiment Control 

SMP N 9 VII-F (34) VII-C (34 students) 

SMP N 10 VII-B (34) VII-A (33 students) 

 

Product Description 

 The product of the research was named as the culture-based English 

textbook. It was a supplementary printed textbook that covered 121 pages and 

had colorful pictures. The textbook was divided into four units and all the units 

reflected the aspects of local or Indonesian culture as well as the target or 

English cultures. The culture-based English textbook as the supplementary of 

printed textbook consisted of: (1) preface, (2) table of content, (3) 

pronunciation guide, (4) unit 1 talking about family, (5) unit 2 talking about 

historical building and things, (6) unit 3 talking about great people, (7) unit 4 

talking about foods and focusing on how to learn the procedure text, 8) 

bibliography, and 9) listening scripts. Every unit had the same parts; a) let’s get 

ready consisting of some tasks, b) let’s act consisting of some learning inputs 

and some main tasks, c) let’s have fun facilitating students to play the game, d) 

let’s do review, a space for doing some exercises, and e) let’s have a reflection, 



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as the top of the unit in which students were given time to make any reflections 

after learning English in the class using the culture-based English textbook.  

 The function of the pronunciation guide in CBEIM became the evidence 

that this research product also concerned on the productive skill. All the units 

were arranged systematically and started by the learning objectives. The 

development of tasks in the units was based on the learning and scientific 

approach. Family was chosen to be a topic in unit 1 because the researcher 

intended to integrate Indonesian culture values in the reading text through the 

characters. Since, values were the very basic things in culture, it was necessary 

to present the model of people who had a good personality. Historical building 

and things were the topic set in unit 2. Students were expected to learn many 

positive values from the cultural heritages possessed by the two nations. For 

unit 3, the researcher presented some great people. Students were expected to 

take and learn moral values from them. Specifically, from the reading text and 

learning activities, students were trained how to be leader, to be confident, 

optimist, and loyal. Reading and other activities provided in every units is 

presented in Figure 1 and 2.  

 

 
 

           Figure 1. The Example of Reading Activities 



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Figure 2. Other Activities 



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 The last unit was about Foods. The foods were exposed in unit 4 as the last 

part because the learning materials and learning objectives sequences were in 

line to the 2013 curriculum syllabus. Additionally, they were emphasizing on 

how to learn the procedure text. However, the last unit was assumed to be the 

most interesting topic because the linguistic features served in the unit were 

more difficult than the previous. Having learnt some either traditional or 

international foods, students were expected to learn how to make thing 

carefully and orderly. Furthermore, the cultural values implied in the last unit 

were helping students to have a good appreciation, nationality, and creativity. 

One of the activities provided in unit 4 is presented in Figure 3. 

 
Figure 3. One of the Activities Provided in Unit 4 

 

 Every unit comprised some general parts. They were: 1) let’s get ready 

which gave the student opportunities to acquire some new words. In that part, 

there were some activities bundled in sort of tasks such as matching picture, 

doing crossword puzzle, and so forth, 2) Let’s Act was the primary activities. It 

consisted of task varieties. The task might expose the students to work both 

individually and in a team. The development of activities in the parts was 

interrelated. The first activity in the let’s act part was started by observing, and 

then followed by questioning, collecting, analyzing, communicating data. In the 

end of the activity of the phase, there were let’s learning which more 

emphasized on how to master the grammar which was driven along with let’s 

create. In the let’s create, there were three types of activities: 1) guided 

production task, 2) semi-guided production task, and 3) free production task.  



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 Starting from the topic of family, historical building and things, the great 

people, and the food, then the further tasks development would be about things 

relate to them. A culture corner was set in the middle of the activities with the 

hope that the students would already get the language inputs. The main purpose 

of displaying them was aimed at educating the students with the culture’s 

values. An Across Culture was for intercultural competence where the students 

could get the chance to learn other culture as well as compare the local and 

target cultures. Let’s play the game was a part that aimed at refreshing the class 

condition. The game had developed relating to the topic thus the students were 

able to link what they had learnt to the fun activity. Let’s do review was the part 

of evaluation, and then the unit was ended by the last part that was reflection 

which functioned as the media to communicate between teachers and students 

responding to all the activities had done in the process of implementing the 

product. An addition, the reflection part of the culture-based English textbook 

was also aimed at facilitating students in order to have the opportunities sharing 

their experiences during the learning process.  

 

Product Evaluation 

To know whether the product of CBEIM was appropriate, it was assessed 

by the content expert and graphical designer. The content aspect consisted of 

content, language, learning, culture, and presentation aspects. The content 

aspect was designed to evaluate materials development, curriculum integration, 

uniformity of material development with knowledge, skills, and values to 

support the process of making communication by using English, 

representations of functional language skills, the strengthen of material 

development in facilitating students to understand social functions, grammatical 

features, and generic structure of the text types. Language aspect assessing 

simplicity of the language, language level, diction, grammatical features, and 

language appropriateness. Learning aspect assessing appropriateness between 

developed material and the result of the needs analysis, unit variety 

development, appropriateness between learning activities and topics, exactness 

to motivate the students to learn English collaboratively and independently, 

meaningful of learning activities development, strength of developed material 

in helping the students to learn the positive values, teachers’ role in that 

process, and the suitability of presented games with the topic. Culture aspect 

expecting to assess: the cultures integration, relevance of the pictures to the 

main topic and cultures, pictures and the students’ age, attractiveness, and 

reflection of Indonesian characters, culture corner existence, cross culture, 

proverb, students’ understanding to cultural diversity. Presentation aspects 

expected to assess: whether the developed material was harmoniously presented 

among let’s get ready, let’s act, let’s play the game, let’s do reviews, and 

reflection as well as the learning objectives in every unit, and the language 

inputs presented both in the form of spoken and written texts, learning 

activities. Graphical design aspects expected to assess materials appearances, 

attractiveness, the suitability, fonts, typing spaces, punctuation, colors, color 



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compositions, the color and text coordination, and pictures and color 

compositions.  

Based on the quantitative data accumulated from the content expert, the 

product gained the total score of 247 with the average of 4.49. Based on the 

formulated category, the product was determined to be very good. The 

following chart and table were indicated the summary of quantitative data 

derived from the product evaluation. 

 

 
Chart 1. Content Expert’s Product Evaluation 

 

Table 4. Content Expert’s Product Evaluation 

No Aspects Score Average Categories 

1 Content 48 4.80 Strongly Agree 

2 Language 20 4.00 Agree 

3 Learning 48 4.80 Strongly Agree 

4 Culture 44 4.40 Strongly Agree 

5 Presentation 44 4.40 Strongly Agree 

6 Graphic 43 4.30 Strongly Agree 

Total Score 247 4.45 Strongly Agree 

 

Students’ English Test Score 

 Students’ English test score were the students’ achievement which meant 

the entire things achieved by the students. In this context, the students’ 

achievements were all their improvements during the learning process 

particularly for their cognitive domain. It comprised the students’ achievement 

when they were mastering the English skills.  

 There were some activities to obtain the students’ achievement. The first 

was by functioning the part of let’s do review. The students did the test in the 

textbook section and then discussed the result with their friends. The second 

plan was designing the tests. In order to know the students’ achievement, the 

researcher compared the students’ previous and current English achievement 

through the pretest and posttest.  

 For the particular purpose of the research, results of the students’ 

achievement were used to know how much students could successful learned 

the skill from the culture-based English textbook. The achievement tests were 

conducted before and after the treatment. The result then was used as a decision 



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on the effectiveness of the product implementation. The following table shows 

the students’ English test both from experiment and control classes covering 

their pretest and posttest. 

 

Table 5. Students’ English Test Score 

Class N Min Max Mean 

Exp.1 68 64 96 80.95 

Exp.2 68 72 100 88.77 

Contr.1 67 56 100 78.29 

Contr.2 67 60 100 82.77 

 

Students’ Internalization and Actualization of Culture Values 

 After learning the entirely materials provided in four units, students 

were expected to have a higher internalization and actualization on culture 

values. There were 25 items with four scales to be used to measure students’ 

level of internalization and actualization of culture values. The questionnaire 

consisted of seven factors. They were: 1) deserving the value of achievement, 

2) self-confidence, 3) creativity, 4) respectful, 5) discipline, 6) nationalism, and 

7) tolerance.  

The measurement instruments used Likert scale with the option of 

favorable as the positive response and unfavorable as the negative response. 

The description of the response comprised: 4. indicated constantly, 3. indicated 

frequently, 2. indicated infrequently, and 1. indicated never. The description of 

each category encompassed the maximum score which was around 100 until 25 

as the minimum score. The students would be judged to have a very good 

understanding and manner of acting when their score reached 78 until 100, 

while they got 63 until 77 signed that they had a good understanding and 

manner of acting, add to this when the score was less than 62 indicated that the 

students needed an intensive guidance.  

 

Table 6. Cultural Values Internalization and Actualization 

Criteria Descriptions Student Percent 

A Very Good 32 47.1% 

B Good 36 52.9% 

C Fair - - 

Total 68 100% 

 

 

 

 

 

         

         

 

Chart 2. Internalization and Actualization of Culture Values 
 



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Table 7. Students’ Cultural Values Internalization & Actualization between 

Experiment and Control Classes 

Class N Min Max Mean 

Scr.1-Exp. 68 65 96 77 

Scr. 2-Exp. 68 70 99 80 

Scr. 1-Cntrl  67 64 90 77 

Scr. 2-Cntrl  67 69 95 78 

 

Result of Culture-Based English Textbook Implementation 

  To know the representation of culture-based English textbook 

effectiveness indicated by the students’ English improvement and culture 

values internalization and actualization, statistical analysis for independent 

sample t-test was applied. T-test for independent sample was used to investigate 

whether there were any significant differences between the two conditions in 

the two classes. The statistical calculation was used the gain score. Table 7 

showed the student number and their means while Table 8 showed the result of 

the statistical calculation of independent t-test by the English gain score. The 

final calculation showed there were any differences between the two groups.  

 

Table 8. Group Statistics of Gain Score of English Test 

Classes N Mean Std. Dv. Std. Error 

Mean 

Exp Class 68 7.823 5.77680 .70054 

Ctrl Class 67 4.209 8.34037 1.01894 

 

Table 9. Independent T-Test with Gain Score 

 

 

 

 

Gain 

Score of 

English 

Test 

 

Levene's Test 

for Equality of 

Variances 

t-test 

for Equality of Means 

 

F Sig

. 

t df Sig. 

(2-

tailed) 

Mean 

Differe

nce 

Std. 

Error 

Differen

ce 

Equal 

variances 

assumed 

2.946 .08

8 

2.93

1 

13

3 

.004 3.6145

7 

1.23328 



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Table 10. Students’ Gain Score of Culture Values Internalization and 

Actualization 

  

 Based on the data gathered, the result showed that there were significant 

differences between the two groups. The experiment class got a higher score on 

the culture values internalization and actualization indicated by significant 

differences among them because they can internalize and actualization the 

cultural values. The culture values provided in the textbook helped the students 

to learn. The outlying critical district that the significant value was smaller than 

the alpha or the p ≤ α (significance of 5% or 0, 05) was obvious from the Table 

9. 

  

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

   Based on the overall descriptions referring to the tryout result, the product 

was determined to be effective. The assumptions were based on several 

arguments. The first, the students could show their increase significantly in 

understanding English materials after learning it using the culture-based 

English textbook. The finding was in fact in line to research finding done by 

Doganay, Ashirimbetova, & Davis (2013). They found that with culture 

integration, students could improve their English communicative and linguistic 

competences. The second, it showed there were differences between the 

students who were taught by the culture-based English textbook and those who 

were not. The third, since the culture-based English textbook was filled with 

cultural values; teachers could motivate and support the students to consider 

those values in their life. The fourth, since the evaluation from the content 

expert on the textbook got a higher appreciation, thus it indicated that the 

culture-based English textbook was feasible and recommended to be used in the 

English teaching and learning process for Junior High School Students in grade 

VII.  

  In addition, observation also was done to observe the class condition and 

the students’ preferences. Those were aimed at being alert of the social bias 

from the students. Realizing the complexity of the research in gaining the data, 

the observations were designed as an experimental observation in which they 

Gain Score of 

Culture 

Values 

 

Levene's Test 

for Equality of 

Variances 

t-test 

for Equality of Means 

 

F Sig. t df 
Sig. 

(2-tailed) 

Mean 

Difference 

Std. Error 

Difference 

Equal 

variances 

assumed 

2.523 .115 2.524 133 .013 2.28709 .90608 



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were done to record the prepared condition in those classes. The point in 

conducting the observation was how the culture-based English textbook was 

being implemented in the class and how far the students could increase their 

cognitive and affective development: English competence, internalizing, and 

actualizing the culture values.  

  There were three important landmarks recorded during the observation: 1) 

how the Culture-based English Textbook could help teachers in teaching 

English and culture values. 2) How the Culture-based English Textbook could 

help students in learning English and understanding the culture values, and 3) 

whether students were seriously internalized and actualize the culture values in 

their daily life. The three landmarks were briefly described in the following’s 

parts.  

  The Culture-based English textbook helped the teacher in teaching English 

and culture values because the instructional materials were developed based on 

the culture-based concept. This idea was supported by Kramsch’s theory (1998) 

convincing that language showed kind of expressions. The expressions could be 

used to symbolize cultural reality. Therefore, language and culture were 

bounding together. As a result, integrating culture values in instructional 

materials were a good choice to do. The teacher utilized some reading texts that 

consisted of culture values in which they were used to stimulate students to be 

well behaved. The example of culture values exploration was taken from the 

unit 3 in which it discussed about the great people.  

  Based on the observation, the teacher started teaching by leading the 

students to pray together and checking the students’ attendance. Having made 

sure the student’s condition, the teacher started announcing the learning goals 

of that day and then continued presenting some great people through the 

classroom screen projector. While seeing and observing the pictures on the 

screen, students also used their culture-based English textbook that had already 

been distributed by the researcher.  

 The teacher started giving a simple description of the pictures. However, she 

stimulated students to mention some of good personalities from the picture 

(such as R.A. Kartini and Cut Nyak Dien) and then students mentioned their 

good personalities. The teacher also guided students in pronouncing the words 

used to describe the picture personalities. The following pictures showed the 

small portion of the class activities.  

  Students were challenged to mention some personalities based on the 

pictures. Some attempted to mention spontaneously and some attempted to 

write the words on the white board. When they did not have the words to say, 

they opened their dictionary and found them. However, some of the 

personality’s terms were presented in the textbook and it could be found in 

page 68 of the textbook. Students were also allowed to do the vocabulary 

enrichment from the page. Before they read the reading passage about the great 

people, they had acquired some related words. Acquiring new words before 

reading the passage was helpful and it made them easy to understand the text.  

  Based on that observation, it showed that both students and teachers were 

helped by the culture-based English textbook. Since then it was equipped with 



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some pictures, vocabularies, pronunciation guide, thus students could easily use 

it independently. The teachers also drilled the students in pronouncing the 

words that related to the great people’ personalities as well as reminded them to 

memorize the words meaning. Students together read aloud the words by 

considering the pronunciation then students were given time to list several good 

personalities from the great people they learn. 

 

 
Figure 4. Listing Good Personalities from Great People 

 

      The culture-based English Textbook could help students in learning English 

and understanding good values. Take for example when they read the reading 

passage about people who had good personalities, at least they were inspired 

and motivated to be and to do the same things. While reading, they also found 

some underlined words in which they were used to attract the students’ 

attention to learn about grammar implied in the passage and the technical 

words, synonym, and antonym related to the reading topic. The Figure 6 was 

used to encourage students to have a respect to the older people. 



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Figure 5. Reading Text in Unit 1 

 

Based on the observation, during the culture-based textbook 

implementation, the students seriously internalized the culture values from the 

reading passage. Those landmarks were captured during the teaching and 

learning process. Those were also proven by the students’ reaction in reading 

the text and the way their responses to the teacher’s command. Apparently, 

there were some students who wrote a part of the textbook content such as the 

fun time what were served in across culture in page 76. Most of them also 

requested the teacher to play the game in the end of the class session. However, 

there were few of them who had the same preferences such as having lack of 

attention to the teacher’ explanation. Despite listening to her explanation, they 

did the vocabulary enrichment and seeing the pictures of the textbook on and 

on while talking and chatting with their classmate.  

From the whole observation, it showed that students were able to learn 

English maximally. They were also motivated to practice English by doing a 

simple conversation with their classmate. This finding supported Kramsch’s 

theory (1993) that culture could be created and learnt through dialogue among 

students and between students and teachers. Their English competence also got 

its significant progress. When the teacher gave them time to work in group, 



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they also did respectfully. They did the work together in their team and able to 

submit the project based on the time allocation and its deadline. By working 

together in a team, students were helped to understand the lesson easily. They 

were also able to build their confidence when they worked in a group. In the 

end of the session, students used their rest of their time by playing games 

enclosed in the end of the unit. The Figure 7 is the example of the game 

appearance. 

 
 

Figure 6. The Games Appearance 

 

Discussion of the Final Product 

  The product had been developed based on the determined standards of the 

research.  CBEIM had proven to have a better quality as the supplementary 

textbook for Y-SJHS. The product was able to enhance and to increase the 

students’ English skill. Furthermore, the level of students’ internalization and 

actualization toward cultural values understanding were also increased. The 

finding then supported the research finding done by Syatrian, et al. (2013) that 

students got easily of comprehending the English lesson when the instructional 

materials were served based on the local contents. That was the empirical 



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evidence showing the product had its own novelty. Since there were two 

landmarks in this research: 1) how to develop the product, and 2) how was the 

effectiveness of the product. Therefore, there were some parts followed them.  

      The process of product development consisted of conducting the need 

analysis which the result of it was used to design the product. While designing 

the product, there were some topics and learning activities considered to be a 

part of the instructional materials. Kind of topics which were developed in the 

product were 1) family, 2) historical building and things, 3) great people, and 4) 

the foods, while the learning activities covered work individually and 

collaboratively. The developed of learning activities were based on the skills, 

such as reading the text, answering the questions, listening and imitating, 

making a dialogue or writing a text based on the provided picture. One of the 

most important things to do in that product development, the researcher 

attempted to integrate the cultural values into the text. 

  There were two ways in integrating the cultural values in that product; 

explicitly and implicitly. The way to integrate the culture values explicitly was 

by developing some text that directly exposed the good moral which appeared 

from the characters of the texts and by giving some additional quotation in the 

form of proverb or culture corner where the students could read and learn the 

moral messages from them. Then the way to integrated implicitly was by 

presenting some pictures and some learning activities in the culture-based 

English textbook. After the product had been finished developed by the 

researcher, then it was time to bring them to the content expert judgment. That 

was the time for the researcher to get any suggestion improving the product. By 

doing that ways, it was expected that the moral and/or positive cultural values 

integration in the product could support the students to internalize and actualize 

them in their daily life. 

  The effectiveness of the product included: 1) the finding whether there was 

any significant increase toward the students’ English test score before and after 

the culture-based English textbook implementation, 2) emerging a significant 

difference between the students’ English test score in experiment and controlled 

classes, 3) as well as were there any increase to the students’ level of 

internalization and actualization toward cultural values. From the process of 

product implementation, it revealed that the product of culture-based English 

textbook could support the teaching and learning process to be more effective. 

It showed that the students’ English score significantly increased, and they also 

demonstrated their progress on internalizing and actualizing the cultural values.   

 

CONCLUSION  
  The way to develop the product was started by conducting the need 

analysis then the result was used to consider in designing and developing 

CBEIM. The materials developed in the research product covered the 

Indonesian culture and English culture such the family, historical buildings and 

things, great people, and foods. Those culture values were presented in reading 

and listening, monologue and dialogues both in written and spoken text. They 

were integrated explicitly and implicitly such as through texts, images, and 



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students’ activities. After the product had been developed then it was validated 

by the content expert and graphical design expert. 

   The product had proven to be effective since there was significantly 

increase of the students’ English test score after learning English using the 

product. The students’ posttest from the experiment class revealed a higher than 

in the control class. Based on the statistical calculation of independent samples 

test with gain score from the two groups, the t values were 2,931 with the p 

values was 0,004. Hence it indicated that there was a significance difference 

between of the two classes since p = 0,004 < 0,05 (with level of significance 

95%). It was caused by the mean of the gain score was 7.8235 from the 

experiment class and 4.2090 from the control class. The product also got its 

superior for it was able to support the students in internalizing and actualizing 

the culture values provided in the all units such as encouraging them to deserve 

achievement, confidence, creative, respect, discipline, tolerance and have a high 

nationalism. Having calculated the gain score of culture values from the two 

groups, the experiment class mean was 2.7647 while the control class was 

0.4776. 

 

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