The Absence of Student Needs and Multiple Intelligence Profiles in English Speaking Textbooks: What do They Really Need?

Abstract

This is a part of research and development under the issue of developing English speaking textbooks oriented to Multiple Intelligence Accommodation (MIA) for students of Junior High Schools (JHS). This study is aimed at determining the students’ needs and Multiple Intelligence (MI) profiles to develop English speaking textbooks. It is evident that a great number of the existing English textbooks for JHS students do not meet the student needs and ignore MIA. Nevertheless, these books provide merely a small number of speaking tasks. This leads to a failure at acquiring English speaking proficiency on the part of the students. This study involved 64 students of seventh grade of JHS in Kebumen Regency of Central Java as the sample. The surveys, tests, and interviews were done to obtain the data. The data analysis is conducted using both qualitative and quantitative methods. In accordance with the data analysis, two findings are documented; (1) the major students convey high necessity of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation tasks in the learning materials; and (2) Logical/ Mathematical, Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, Intrapersonal, and bodily/ kinesthetic intelligences reflect the students’ MI profile. Keywords—student needs, multiple intelligence profiles, speaking textbooks