Creation And Transfer Of Context In College English Reading And Writing Materials Development

Context has been studied by anthropologists, philosophers, semanticists, and pragmatists, etc. for decades. In recent years, the study of context has been no longer confined to static discourses or texts or to the analysis of explicit factors; it began to analyze implicit contextual factors existing in communication from dynamic perspectives. It is found that the factors contributing to the understanding of a text, if used in the compiling of college English coursebooks and English language teaching, will improve students'learning efficiency and enhance their communicative skills.According to context theory and the aims of College English Curriculum Requirements, this thesis assesses contextual value and its guiding function for coursebook development in college English teaching and learning practice. This thesis sets English coursebooks on reading and writing as its research targets, and accordingly conducts a case study through questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews, which involve 600 Southeast University students using College English (Integrated Course) and Experiencing English (Integrated Book) as their English coursebooks. It is argued in the light of the study that context can assist teachers'teaching and students'language acquisition. First of all, context in coursebooks should be created in relation to students'life experience and cognitive styles, which can activate students'schemata to understand language and culture; secondly, the context created by course designers should be understandable and transferable in the learning and practical settings; finally, context used in classroom should accord with real life, so that students can put what they learned into practice.Coursebooks are carriers of the objectives and contents defined by the curriculum, and facilitating tools for teaching and learning to take place. As far as the English coursebooks are concerned, the use of the coursebooks, so to speak, is the process of communication among the designers, the teachers and the students. The contextual factors in this process include language knowledge, world knowledge, participants, and classroom situation, and those closely related to the language acquisition, cultural exchanges, and language application. Therefore, coursebook evaluation should not be confined to package or content arrangement only. Rather it should be based on whether it can establish intelligible context, and whether the context will contribute to the language acquisition on the part of students, and to the language teaching on the part of teachers.In short, the significance of this thesis consists in its application of context theory to the practice of college English coursebook development and teaching. Limitations, however, still exist, for only Southeast University students and the two coursebooks were involved in the study, and besides the student learning efficiency and psychological factors couldn't be studied very closely in such a short time which has left much room for future research. It is, however, the author's sincere hope that this study can provide some helpful reference for the development of college English reading and writing coursebooks and ELT practice in China.