Modal Verbs of Prediction and Volition in Indonesian EFL Junior High School Textbooks: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

This study investigates the representation of modal verbs expressing prediction and volition in Indonesian EFL textbooks for junior high schools aligned with the Kurikulum Merdeka. Employing a corpus-based methodology, the analysis compares modal usage in textbooks against two prominent native corpora: the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the British National Corpus (BNC). The findings highlight the dominant use of the modal verb "will" and underrepresentation of "would" and "shall," suggesting a limited semantic range presented to learners. This research provides pedagogical insights into improving the authenticity and effectiveness of EFL materials by aligning them more closely with authentic language usage. The study contributes to the growing body of corpus-based linguistic research and proposes practical measures to align language instruction with real-world communication demands. Through detailed linguistic comparison and discussion of pedagogical implications, this article aims to enhance textbook quality and language instruction for Indonesian EFL learners.