COGNITIVE LEVELS OF FUN TIME SECTIONS IN THE EIGHTH GRADE ENGLISH FOR NUSANTARA TEXTBOOK

This study examines the cognitive domains embedded in the Fun Time sections of the English for Nusantara textbook used at the Indonesian junior secondary level, with particular attention to how these activities support lower-order and higher-order thinking skills. Employing a qualitative descriptive content analysis, the study adopts the Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy as its analytical framework. All Fun Time activities were systematically reviewed and manually coded using a structured classification sheet aligned with the six cognitive domains: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. The findings reveal a clear dominance of lower-order thinking skills, particularly remembering, understanding, and applying, while higher-order thinking skills analyzing, evaluating, and creating appear less frequently and are unevenly distributed across units. Although higher-order cognitive tasks are present, their limited occurrence suggests an imbalance in the cognitive demands promoted by the textbook. The results highlight important implications for textbook evaluation, English language teaching, curriculum and materials development, and instructional design. By focusing specifically on the Fun Time sections an area rarely explored in prior studies this research offers fresh insights into the role of engaging textbook activities in fostering students’ cognitive development within Indonesian junior secondary English education.