Textbook imposes a standard, unifies stock of language on all the learners who use it. This is especially demotivating for learners who may want to know particular items of the language but may not find it in the textbook.
Another demotivating aspect is when learners of the same level but of different cultural background could not cope with the textbook, as in the KBSM Form 4 textbook. Looking at it, we can say that it is all well illustrated with colourful illustrations and activities as stated by Griffiths (1995), " students usually react more favourably to bright, colourful, interesting and well-illustrated materials" but to the kampung learners, those are nice to look at but not to learnt because as we know, learners learning capabilities are of different levels. Even those in the same class are already different in attitudes, motivation, and learning styles what more those in kampung areas? They are more handicapped, more introvert when it comes to language.
Next, is the material relevant to real-life? As the focus will be on assisting learners to do in class what they will need to do outside of class, material should reflect the outside world. In other words, they should have a degree of authenticity. Can this be found in the textbook? The answer is not much because the language used is too structured and does not reflect the real daily conversation they hear around them (example pages 2, 60, 79 etc). The dialogue is too long winded and the language too formal. This sort of text is not captivating and will lead to boredom since it does not relate to their surroundings (pages 115. 126 etc).
Next important point is " material should expose learners to authentic use," Jayakaran (2003) and as usual this textbook does not do so. There's no recorded tapes or cassettes for the listening materials on "real life interactions". What is given is written tape scripts in the appendix where the learners can refer.
