Studies On The Construction Of College English Listening And Speaking Textbooks

The current situation of college English teaching and learning manifests that a majority of students are weak in listening and speaking. How to improve students'listening and speaking ability has always been a conundrum to the educators. College English Listening and Speaking Textbooks (CELS), as an essential component in the implementation of English curriculum, play a crucial role in accomplishing teaching objectives. Since schema theory in cognitive linguistics and input theory of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) have great influence on English teaching and learning, this thesis aims at studying the construction of CELS from the perspective of these two theories. Grounded on the College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR), this thesis takes the first two volumes of College Experiencing English Listening and Speaking textbooks (EELS) as examples and employs the method of quantitative analysis and quantitative analysis to investigate the construction elements of CELS. The main research processes are as follows:On the one hand, starting from textbook analysis, the author collects data about the construction elements of the first two volumes of EELS by observing and listening to the materials, such as vocabulary, audio speed and subject and so on. And then the author analyzes these elements through quantitative analysis so as to examine whether they can meet the requirements of CECR.On the other hand, according to the schema theory and the results of quantitative analysis, this thesis makes qualitative analysis of the construction elements, including vocabulary, audio speed, subject, Warm Up, picture, and the correlation between the under study textbooks and the first two volumes of Experiencing English Integrated Textbooks (EEI). And then the author discusses which construction elements are worthy of recognition and affirmation and which ones need to be revised and improved. In the meantime, the thesis explores the enlightenment of them to the construction of CELS. The results indicate that the first two volumes of EELS lay emphasis on"experience"in language learning. For instance, the Warm Up is closely related to the topic, which can inspire students to predict the content. Meanwhile, the arrangement of exercises is reasonable for they are helpful for students to consolidate the language knowledge they have learned. However, the first two volumes of EELS cannot meet CECR completely. Firstly, the vocabulary's recurrence rate and density in the two volumes are not reasonable, and a great number of new vocabularies do not conform to CECR. Secondly, the audio speed can not meet the basic requirements of CECR. Thirdly, the subjects are not designed diversely. In addition, the pictures are excessive, which may lead to students'schema confusion.Based on the analysis and discussion of the findings, the thesis combines with the schema theory and input theory to make further suggestions for revising EELS and compiling CELS. The author expects that the suggestions may be regarded as a reference for the compiling of CELS.