Genre-based approach in speaking activities of the English for Change textbook

Abstract

A textbook is a fundamental tool in classroom teaching and learning, providing guidance and materials to understand the material topic. This study aims to analyze the Genre-based Approach (GBA) stages and genres represented in the speaking activities of an Indonesian EFL textbook entitled English for Change for eleventh graders. This qualitative study employs document and content analysis to evaluate 44 speaking activities in the students’ textbook published by the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology. The speaking instructions found in the textbook were categorized based on the four stages of the Genre-based Approach, namely Building Knowledge of the Field (BKOF), Modelling of the Text (MOT), Joint Construction of the Text (JCOT), and Independent Construction of the Text (ICOT). In addition, each chapter activity was analyzed to identify the genre it represents based on Derewianka and Jones' (2016) genre classification. The findings reveal that while the textbook fully implemented GBA stages, the distribution is imbalanced, with most activities focused on the MOT stage. The genre types represented in the textbook are descriptive, discussion, analytical exposition, and procedure. The results suggest that textbook developers need to include a wide range of genres and that teachers should critically select the activities based on students’ needs to improve their genre awareness and speaking skills more effectively. The findings show that the English for Change textbook integrates well with the Genre-based Approach.