Readability of PISA-like Reading Texts: A Lesson Learned from Indonesian Teachers

Abstract

This article discusses the text readability of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)-like reading texts written by Indonesian-English-teachers who are teaching in high schools in Jawa Barat province, Indonesia. The aims of the research are to describe the lexical density, grammatical intricacy, and lexical variation indexes of the PISA-like reading texts compared to PISA reading texts 2018 released field trial new reading items. The method applied is a qualitative with descriptive quantification. The qualitative method is employed to identify and describe both lexical and grammatical words, in addition to specifying the lemmas and ranking clauses in the PISA-like reading texts. Quantifying the indexes of lexical density, grammatical intricacy, and lexical variation are implemented. All analyses utilized are based on the systemic functional linguistic approach. It is reported that, firstly, the texts of PISA reading texts 2018 are lexically denser than the PISA-like reading texts. Secondly, the texts of PISA reading texts 2018 are grammatically more intricate than the PISA-like reading texts. Lastly, PISA-like reading texts have similar index with PISA reading texts 2018.