It is widely recognized that cognition and language development are interrelated in language education (Ghonsooly & Showqi, 2012; Li et al., 2016; Rachmawati et al., 2021). Regarding the cognitive domain, the cognitive domain was defined and outlined in 1956 by Bloom, whose book has become the standard model for such taxonomies (Porter & Brown, 1997). These categories can help language teachers to think through what students should be able to do. The 1956 learning taxonomy developed by Alan Bloom was updated and improved by (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001). There are six levels of cognitive ability. The first three levels—remembering, comprehending, and applying—are regarded as lower-order cognitive skills. Additionally, the three other skills—analyzing, assessing, and creating—are regarded as higher-order thinking abilities. The ability to retrieve specific knowledge from long-term memory is referred to as remembering. Understanding, which refers to the capacity to create concepts from verbal, writing, and visual communication, is the second degree of cognitive ability. The ability to implement or carry out a certain technique to overcome challenges and apply knowledge is thus described as applying. The fourth cognitive level is analysis, which is the capacity to dissect a problem into its component parts and make decisions.

Curriculum developers place a great emphasis on all skills required by students (Cuoco et al., 2021a, Cuoco et.al. 2021b; Dharma et al., 2018). Therefore, the English curriculum is developed to the requirements of the learners’ need to be able to use the language in its various textual forms (Null, 2017). In designing a curriculum, curriculum developers should determine its goal (Kostka & Bunning, 2017). A continuum of regional, school-based, national, and worldwide frameworks is employed in curriculum design (Mickan & Wallace, 2019). Furthermore, the curriculum can be used as a starting point for raising a country's educational standards. (Indriyanto, 2012). The curriculum developers should also foster students’ success in the future (Guardado & Light, 2020). In addition, education authorities and practitioners should reflect on their policy and practice in language education to face the current challenges of the educational system (Beacco et al., 2016). The difficulty of developing a curriculum has prompted a reconsideration of its role in English education. (Graves & Lopriore, 2009). Moreover, in designing a curriculum, theory, and practice regarding what curriculum today should be taken into consideration (Moore, 2012). In summary, teaching practices are ideally based on the curriculum set by the developers or policymakers to accomplish the general aims of education. Hence, Curriculum developers must also consider the needs and situation analysis of the education aspects like teachers’ quality, learners’ competence, learning facilities, and the challenges that might occur at schools.

Basic Competence (Kompetensi Dasar/KD) and its development to be the achievement indicator aims and objectives should be determined by curriculum developers because they refer to the knowledge, skills, and values required by learners. The nature of goals in educational program design has sparked significant controversy and debate in the curriculum literature (Richards, 2001). Here, English teachers are expected to write lesson plans based on the outcomes of policy documents. Teachers will obtain the statement of competencies as the standard to be achieved in the lesson from a policy document or curriculum (Setyono, 2016). Setyono (2016) continues that teachers struggle with breaking down basic competence into indicators and developing learning objectives. As it is also known that basic competence may be regarded as learning outcomes that teachers can develop as learning indicators as the basis to do teaching-learning activities. It can be seen that basic competence in the 2013 Curriculum states HOTS. As a result, the teachers should be able to develop learning indicator achievement using observable and measurable (action) verbs suggested in the classification of Bloom's taxonomy cognitive domain (see Appendix 2).

The basic competence in the 2013 English Curriculum is classified into two types KD 3 (knowledge/cognitive competence) and KD (skill/psychomotor competence). In practice, there is an agreement that the lesson plan developed should cover KD 3 and KD 4. It also happens to the teaching-learning process which is suggested to implement KD 3 and KD 4. KD 3 is considered a lower-order thinking skill in which the learners should identify and comprehend the concepts of certain texts. While KD 4 is regarded as the ability to use the texts in daily communication. Therefore, it is usual that in KD 3, the action verb used is to identify while in KD 4, the action verb used is to compose or arrange the texts in spoken and written form. In addition, KD 4 can be recognized as a higher-order thinking skill. As a consequence, the English teacher should develop the competency achievement indicator following the order from KD 3 to KD 4, from low order thinking to higher order thinking.

This study employed a qualitative content analysis technique to analyze the basic competence and achievement indicator known as learning objectives related to the domain of cognitive level of Bloom's taxonomy of higher order thinking skills (analyzing, evaluating, and creating). Lesson plan written by the English teachers who follow the national program, Teacher Professional Program (Program Profesi Guru/PPG) held by UNESA in 2021. The teachers come from all over Indonesia. The lesson plans studied are written by English teachers from East Java, West Java, and Jakarta. This study focuses on the indicator achievement written by the teachers. The content analyzed for this study is basic competence ( Kompetensi Dasar /KD) which represents HOTS and indicator achievement as considered teaching-learning objectives developed by English teachers in their lesson plan.

The lesson plan was written by English teachers who followed the Teachers Professional Program (PPG) in the year 2021. The lesson plans selected for this study were written by English teachers from East Java, West Java, and Jakarta. The lesson plans selected represented HOTS in basic competence ( Kompetensi Dasar /KD). The lesson plans were selected to cover all levels of high school, junior high school (grade VIII), senior high school (grade XII), and vocational school (grade X). The basic competencies developed include KD.3.5 & 4.5 for grade VIII, KD 3.1 & 4.2.1 for grade XII and KD 3.5 and 4.5 for grade X. Lesson plan written by English teachers from Jakarta (Junior High School case), West Java (Senior High School case) and East Java (Vocational School case).

The basic competencies shown for Grade VIII consist of 13 competencies (Appendix 1). The English teacher wrote the lesson plan based on basic competence 3.5 and 4.5 which states that the students will be able to compare social communicative function, generic structure of the text, and linguistic features of some special texts in the form of greeting cards to give and ask information concerning special days following the context of its use (3.5), while for the basic competence no 4.5 which states to arrange/compose/set up special texts in the form of a greeting card (correctly and properly with the context), very short and simple related to special days and pay attention to the social function of the text, generic structure and linguistic features of the text.

Analyzing the basic competence above, it can be considered that the cognitive competence required to compare is quite ambiguous. The word compare may belong to the understanding cognitive domain or evaluating cognitive domain. The definitions of the word ‘compare’ according to revised Bloom’s taxonomy action verbs are ‘demonstrate understanding of facts and ideas by organizing, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and stating main ideas’ (‘understanding cognitive domain’) and ‘present and defend opinions by making judgments about information, the validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of criteria. Judging from the definition given, it can be traced that the outcome of this basic competence is the ability to evaluate the cognitive domain. However, the following basic competence to arrange or set up may belong to the understanding cognitive domain. In this case, it seems that there is a lack of coherence. Instead, the arrangement of basic competence does not begin with something less difficult to something difficult. There is a declining ability from evaluating to understanding.

Studying the achievement indicator written by the teachers which state ‘to identify’, ‘to classify’, ‘to determine’, ‘to arrange a text’, and ‘to present’. Here, it can be found that there is no coherency of the ability. The indicators are started with identifying and classifying, but it declines to determine which means to name which belongs to the remembering cognitive domain. While the teaching-learning process will be ended by giving a presentation of the text which has been arranged/set up in the previous activity. There is an illogical order of thinking presented in the competency achievement indicators written by the teacher. The study finding supports the previous study that teachers still encounter problems in developing HOT indicators and basic competence in a lesson plan (Indriyana & Kuswandono, 2019; Sukmawijaya et al., 2020; Yunita et al., 2020).

The case of grade XII basic competence is similar to the case of grade VIII, whereas the basic competence of no 3.1 is caption text (the students will be able to compare social communicative function, generic structure of the text, and linguistic features some special texts in the form of a caption to give and ask information concerning pictures /photo/graph/table following the context of its use). The basic competence for KD 4 (4.2.1) is to comprehend text contextually concerning the social function of the text, generic structure, and linguistic features of special text caption related to picture/photo/table/graph/chart by the context of its use. The basic competence selected here is no 3.1 ‘to compare’ which has two definitions based on In accordance with Bloom's definition, students should "show understanding of facts and ideas by arranging, comparing, translating, interpreting, giving descriptions, and articulating important concepts." 'Present and defend beliefs by making judgments about facts, the validity of ideas, or quality of work based on a set of standards' ('understanding cognitive domain'). Judging from the definition given, it can be traced that the outcome of this basic competence is the ability to evaluate the cognitive domain).

While for the basic competence 4.2.1 is ‘to comprehend the text contextually concerning the social function of the text, the generic structure of the text, and the linguistic features of the text in the form of special text, a caption for picture/photo/table/chart/graph. Evaluating the coherence of the basic competence from cognitive (KD 3) to basic competence (KD) 4, there is a decline in the cognitive domain. If the verb ‘compare’ belong to the cognitive domain ‘evaluating’, the following cognitive domain should be the ‘creating’ cognitive domain. The basic competence stated in KD 3 and KD 4 seems illogically arranged. Soenoewati(2015) findings that teachers complicate the formulation of KD that reflects their incapability to understand and develop the appropriate achievement indicators that accommodate HOT skills in basic competencies.

The indicator achievement was written by the teacher from West Java and also shows lower order thinking cognitive domain, although the last indicator achievement uses the action verb evaluating. The indicator achievement is started with the action verb ‘to identify’, followed by ‘to classify’, then ‘to determine’. For basis competence 4, the teacher used action verbs ‘to detect’, ‘to develop’, and ‘to evaluate. The competency achievement indicators written by the teacher seem to be logically developed although the basic competence stated in the curriculum is not arranged in good order based on Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2001; Sholikah et al., 2021; Wilson, 2013). It can be acknowledged that the teacher followed the logical order of the cognitive domain of Bloom’s taxonomy and comprehend that different action verbs should be used in formulating the achievement indicator to reflect students’ lower-order or higher-order thinking skills.

The syllabus for vocational is different from general high school. The English syllabus for vocational schools seems to be modified to be relevant to the need and the situation at vocational schools. The basic competence for a cognitive domain, no 3.5 is ‘to analyze the social function of the text, the generic structure of the text and linguistic features some special texts in the form of announcement, giving and asking information concerning activities at school or workplace which is following the context of its use’. The basic competence of KD 4.5 is to ‘arrange special text in the form of announcement, spoken or written, short and simple by paying attention to the social function of the text, the generic structure of the text and the linguistic features correctly and relevant to the context of its use’. The basic competencies stated in the syllabus show the declining ability related to the cognitive domain, from analyzing to applying. As it is known that in the process of teaching-learning, philosophically teaching something simple to something complicated.

The English teacher from East Java develop the indicator achievement for basic competence cognitive domain as follow, ‘to ask generic structure of announcement relevant to the context of its use’, ‘to arrange the generic structure and expression about announcement related to its contextual use’, ‘to divide the students to make expression about announcement relate to the context’, ‘to make the generic structure from a various expression of announcement related to the contextual use’. While for the basic competence (KD 4), the teacher developed competency achievement indicators as follows, ‘to present either in spoken or written mode’ and ‘evaluating the presentation’. The coherence of the cognitive order is questioning, not linear from remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating. If the basic competence starts with analyzing, it should be followed by evaluating and creating. Therefore, the order of KD 3 and KD 4 does not follow the proper order of Bloom’s taxonomy. In addition, it seems that the teacher would teach the text indiscreetly.

Lie, 2007 claims that despite many years of formal English education, the results were unsatisfactory. Very few high school graduates are able to speak English clearly. Additionally, a lot of English teachers in Indonesia are not native speakers of the language they are instructing. Students were taught specific language abilities, such as grammar or vocabulary, rather than how to utilize English in context for everyday communication. Furthermore, she also mentions that the educational practitioners do not reflect the ideals of the curriculum concerning the development of basic competencies based on HOTS. In practice, English teachers still get difficulties developing basic competencies stated in the curriculum into indicator achievement (Soenoewati, 2015). The process of disseminating the new curriculum should be carried out seriously so that the confusion about the concepts of the curriculum can be minimized. The 2013 Curriculum has been implemented for almost 7 years, but many English teachers do not know the linguistic concept underlying the basic competencies and also the teaching-learning materials. Therefore, the teachers and also the students do not get the gist of the curriculum as so many teachers still teach English discreetly. Therefore, teachers as the key curriculum implementers should change their perspective on the changing teaching-learning strategy (Nurhattati et al., 2020).

In developing the basic competencies as the indicators of curriculum goals and objectives, it is really important to follow Bloom's taxonomy correctly, so that there will no confusion in arranging the basic competence as the basis in doing the teaching-learning process. It can be seen in the basic competencies stated in the curriculum seems that the basic competencies are not arranged following the theoretical framework of Bloom's taxonomy. The basic competencies stated in the curriculum do not follow the correct order of cognitive domain, from lower order thinking to higher order thinking. Therefore, it is very significant for curriculum developers and curriculum practitioners to have a proper understanding of how to develop basic competencies following Bloom’s taxonomy. As a legal document, the curriculum should be developed to meet the need of the learners and also society's demands. As it can be seen that basic competence is the main focus in designing the teaching-learning process.

To keep up with developments happening in the world in all areas, the curriculum has remained open to improvement. (Kaya & Ok, 2016). A curriculum's primary objective is to assist everyone engaged in educational advancement in molding the personalities of the learners (Null, 2017). Null continues to state that curriculum is the heart of education. The curriculum has retained its institutional identity. Consequently, the curriculum should be redesigned (Madya, 2002). Improving the curriculum without improving the quality of the teachers will not be considered successful. It has been proven by the cases in which the teacher does not have enough knowledge to develop indicator achievement using Bloom's taxonomy cognitive domain. If the indicator achievement developed by teachers is not fulfilling the concepts appropriately, the teaching-learning process will not run effectively. As a result, if the objectives of the teaching and learning activities cannot be achieved, it will be a failure. As a fact, the students still have inadequate ability to use English for communication as required by the curriculum. Many curriculum experts contend that numerous factors must be considered in order to achieve desired results, including the adherence of curriculum practitioners to established standards. (Kaya & Ok, 2016). Therefore, the dissemination should be planned well and those who are involved in the dissemination program are the experts. As the consequence, in disseminating a new curriculum, not only education experts should participate, but also the experts if the field of study should be involved. Any workshop or training held by the government or any educational institution should be well planned and given by a real speaker who masters the content of the curriculum.