Bahasa Melayu is one of the subjects that have been taught for primary and secondary school level. For my review on our national textbook, I choose Bahasa Melayu text book for Year 1 students. This subject is a basic subject that is very important to the beginner of student in Year 1 to start their learning about the languages itself and also the relevant topic in order to make their knowledge become wider.
This text book is the main resources in the process of learning in the school. The concept of this textbook is focusing on pasca-kindergarten. This means, the Year 1 student has already can cover the skill of reading, writing and this textbook will be continues medium to enhance their learning in that skill. This Bahasa Melayu Year 1 textbook were published by Dewan Bahasa & Pustaka in 2005. With the development of ICT in our educational field and our country, Ministry of Education has taken a step by producing a textbook with a CD ROM comes in a pack to the student as an added value to this textbook. The use of CD ROM in the process of learning will enhance the need of government to achieve the vision of education that want to use e-learning concept without lagging behind the vision of our National Education Philosophy. This CD ROM is an interactive medium of learning that can strengthen up the teaching and learning process in the classroom plus with the textbook provided.
From my review on this textbook, the font size that have been used in this text book are18/20 point. It also used Atlanta Light type of font. It is stated at the front pages of this textbook. The font and the style age that have been used in this textbook is big, clear and easy to read. It is easy for Year 1, the beginner learner of students to capture the text word by word. The appropriate fonts that have been used will attract the student interest to read the book.
Besides that, I found that, this textbook provide table of content whereby it is very useful for student to find the specific topics or pages of the selected topic that they want to have a view or read it. For Year 1 students, it might help them to find in less time the topic that they want to read by referring to the table of content provided. Furthermore, all the pages are numbered, therefore it will not confusing the students. This also will make their work become easier and systematic. Besides that, this textbook also provides the symbol references. The use of this symbol references is to help the student understand its’ function when they have meet it in the textbook. For example, there are symbol of individual activity, pair work activity, group activity, web pages access, refer to CD ROM, refer to detailed summary of subject syllabus and etc.
In this textbook also, it provides language glossary box and dialogue box in each chapter or topic so that it will help student become more understand and clear about the chapter or topic they learned for that day. In languages glossary box, it will publish the right and wrong word spelling, verb, subject, predicate, adjective, synonyms and other information towards the languages. While in dialogues box, it will provides the dialogues between people in the community discussing the specific topics in that textbook. From that, students will have a picture on what they have to know in that topic and it will help them in learning the languages throughout the dialogues. This textbook also provides briefly summary box on introduction for every topic so that student can easily capture the content of the topics that they will learn on that day. For example, at the end of this topic learning, student will be able to spell the word correctly.
Besides that, the arrangement of the content in this textbook shows the fluent sequence of the textbook development whereby at first, it started with basic knowledge or topic such as about knowing their self, their family, friends, community and followed by other topics. Therefore, it will give student a sequence to learn from basic knowledge until to the broad topic of the subjects.
In this textbook also, there are a lot of pictures inside it. So, this textbook is full of colorful pictures and images therefore it quite interesting for Year 1 student to have a look and at the same time will attract them to read it. Besides that, there are also illustrations, tables, dialogues box that are relevant provided in this textbook and very functional as well because it provides useful and brief information to students in building up their mind towards their learning. This textbook also is really uniform in appearance and content layout throughout the chapter because from my review, this textbook has attractive layout in all topics throughout the book. Maybe, it is because this textbook is for Year 1 students so they should make it such a colorful layout so that it can attract the attention of the students.
Furthermore, this textbook also provides other external link or references such as CD ROM and internet sources by providing references tool kit and web address at below of the pages in each of topic learned. It is very useful for Year 1 students to gain additional information for their own knowledge. For example, in this textbook, topic ‘Tourism’, it provides available web address such as
http://www.tourismmalaysia.gov.my/ and
www.unmuseum.org/unmain.htm at below of the textbook pages for that topic so that student can go to that web pages to make referral and gain as much as information that can help them in their learning process.
In every chapter in this textbook, there will be an activity or simple quizzes or questions at the end of every lesson for student to complete it. There are individual activities, pair work activity and group activity. All of these activities are to make sure that the student has already understood the topic they have learned and it also compulsory to test the comprehension of students towards the topic learned. Besides that, the student will learn on how to interact with other student throughout this activity. It will make the student become involve with active learning because student need to do an activity that need them to develop the creative thinking and apply it in their daily life. For example, in each activity in this textbook, it provides a web address references in order to give student an access to find an extra information on that internet that can help them in others subjects and their daily life too. Therefore, through this activity, it will enhance their mind and develop their thinking too.
As I go throughout the textbook, I found that this textbook is up to date and it gives accurate information to the students because it provide latest information and the content of this textbook also has always been checked up and being revised. For example, this textbook has been published after being revised by referring to the new KBSR revision. Therefore all the topics in this textbook are the combination of the topic that has already been in that textbook plus with new topics that have been improved in new KBSR revision. This textbook also use a simple and appropriate language for Year 1 students and it is easy to be understood by all kind and multiracial of students.
This textbook also is provided in appropriate size and weight for student because it is not thick and not too heavy. The numbers of pages for this textbook are only 120 pages. It shows that this textbook is not heavy and burdens the students. For Year 1 students, it is very essential and helpful to them if the textbook is not heavy because the size of the student is quite small and of course it will burden to them if they have to carry heavy bag.
From my overall review towards this Bahasa Melayu Year 1 textbook, I could say that the content and the appearance of this textbook has already meet the local and national standard because it almost fulfill all the criteria of a good textbook. A good textbook which means that, the content in the book is easy to be understood, has attractive layout to read and it also provides some references and extra information for students to find it such as internet web resources and it seems that this textbook has reach that criteria. Therefore lastly, for my suggestion, I think the textbook should be used by schools not more than 5 years and above and the Ministry of Education should revise the textbook according to the changes of the KBSR syllabus and the textbook need to be updated frequently from time to time suitable with the changing time and other factors. The Ministry of Education also should enhance the quality of the textbook by adding extra and more interesting features in that textbook so that it will broaden up the student’s mind and thinking together with the development of the nation in the future.
