Optimizing EFL Learners’ Sensitizing Reading Skill: Development of Local Content-Based Textbook

The development of local wisdom based sensitizing reading material is aimed at penetrating one of the imperishable gaps between authentic and non-authentic reading materials dispute in an EFL teaching context. Promoting EFL learners’ needs for the first semester students of English department at university level, who rarely or even never have a direct contact with native speakers, with meaningful and contextual reading textbook in an EFL setting is worth contributing. This study utilizes research and development paradigm within four stages, namely planning, development, try-out, and textbook revision. The textbook development resulted fifteen chapters containing fifteen local reading passages from various famous local tourism objects, famous public figures, cultures, traditional cuisines, and music. Each chapter encompasses eight exercises generated from the reading text itself with approximately from 400 to 600 words. Those exercises cover picture reading preview and identification, lexical sets, collocation and formation, literal, interpretive, and critical comprehension, and networking activity through interview and writing activity beyond the text. The average result of textbook validation from reading experts, English practitioners, and learners revealed the average score was 3.76 within the interval 1 to 4 and it was sorted out into ‘good’ category. Further, revisions toward grammatical error, diction, instruction clarity and picture lay out were also addressed and refined. As the textbook effectiveness toward the improvement of learners’ reading comprehension is not measured yet, so an experimental study is welcome for further research to address the issue of textbook effectiveness.