Evaluation Of Writing Sections In Three College English Textbooks: From Students’ Perspective

With the promotion of the China’s reform and opening-up policy andglobalization, the conversation across countries becomes more and more frequent.Therefore, the practical value of English writing has been upgrade to a high level andEnglish writing ability has been more valued than ever before. This situation bringsboth opportunities and challenges to the English as a foreign language instruction. Onthe one hand, the practical value of written English promotes the teaching of Englishwriting; on the other hand, students’ weak point in English writing should be takenseriously. Thus, the present study pays attention to writing sections in college Englishtextbooks and focuses on the students’ attitude and expectations of the writingsections to put forward practical suggestions to college English textbook design.In the process of language learning, textbooks are the basis on which teachers’teaching activities are organized as well as the main source from which studentsobtain language skills and learning strategies. To improve students’ writing skills, therole that college English textbooks play can never be neglected. Thus, how to enhancecollege students’ writing ability by the proper usage of college English textbooks inteaching practice has remained an important and pressing issue.Since the1980s, English teaching material evaluation has aroused researchers’attention both in China and overseas, and plenty of models, guidelines and checklistsfor materials evaluation have been proposed. In China, most teaching materialevaluation is teacher-centered, including college English textbook evaluation. As theusers of materials, students’ need directly determine the content of the materials.Teaching material evaluations from students’ perspective should not be ignored in theevaluation process. Moreover, most teaching material evaluation focuses on Englishwriting textbooks, but overlooks the vital role writing sections play in college Englishtextbooks. Few English writing courses are offered in universities. Thus, Englishwriting textbooks are not widely used. Students’ English writing skills are mainlyacquired from the College English Course by using the writing sections in collegeEnglish textbooks. Thus, the college English textbooks writing sections evaluation isof great importance.The present study not only adopts students’ perspective, but also chooses thewriting sections to be the target of evaluation. This is different from the previousresearches. The present study modifies the framework of college English textbook evaluation in China, which is of great theoretical significance.To investigate students’ need in EFL writing and to provide suggestions forteachers and textbooks editors, this research intends to answer the following threeresearch questions:1. How is the writing section being used in the three English textbooks?2. What are the students’ attitudes towards the writing sections in the threecollege English textbooks?3. What are the students’ expectations of the writing sections in the collegeEnglish textbooks?The present study intends to evaluate the writing sections in three most widelyused college English textbooks in the English class in Chinese universities,respectively: New Angle College English (NACE), Integrated College English (ICE),and Enjoyable College English (ECE). To protect the reputation of the publishingcompanies and textbooks, the real title of the three textbooks are intentionallydisplaced.The present study evaluates the writing sections in college English textbook fromstudents’ perspective by using a questionnaire and interviews to find out theapplication importance of the writing sections, students’ attitudes and usage of thewriting sections.Three hundred and thirty eight college students who are non-English majors in aleading national research university in Northeast China were chosen as theparticipants of the present research. Three hundred and thirty two sophomores of themwere chosen to fill in the questionnaire and six of them were interviewed. Among thesix students, two of them used the same college English textbook. These338participants have already used the textbooks for more than one year, and they knowwell about the textbook design and their needs in English learning.The questionnaire is consisted of two parts: Writing Sections in Three CollegeEnglish Textbooks Applications and The Evaluation of Writing Sections in ThreeCollege English Textbooks.Part one of the questionnaire includes4multiple-choice questions to evaluateinstructors’ application of writing sections in three college English textbooks.Part two of the questionnaire is about students’ feedback towards the writingsections in their English textbooks. It is divided into two parts. The first part includes21multiple-choice questions to evaluate writing sections from5aspects: aim and concept，content，design and structure，page layout, and overall attitude. All thequestions were designed by using a6-point Likert-type Scale. The second partconcludes4opening questions for students to give detailed descriptions of theirattitudes towards writing section in their English textbook.The data analysis is conducted by the use of the SPSS software after the datacollection. The interview questions designed after the analysis of the questionnaire toensure validity of the interview. The interview questions involve the importance, theadvantages and disadvantages of the writing sections from students’ perspective, theelements to be considered writing sections content design, and so on. Interviewquestions and the essay questions in the part2of the questionnaire serve as anecessary supplement and are expected to offer in-depth and profound analysis.From the data analysis, the research results are as follow:Firstly, the instructors’ using of the writing sections in three college Englishtextbooks is far from satisfaction. In class, the writing section is not being fullyexplained by the teacher or being used by students. First, the teachers either overlookor simplify the writing sections instruction in each unit; second, teachers do not givefeedbacks on students’ essays; and the last, students fail to use writing sections to doself-study. In fact, students are clearly aware of the importance of English writing, andeager to improve their English writing ability. However, due to the limitation of classtime, coupled with the negligence of teachers, in the writing sections instruction-anintegral part of English textbooks, students also do not place sufficient emphasis onEnglish writing.Secondly, even though the students’ attitude towards writing sections design incollege English textbooks is not consistent in each aspect, they using the threetextbooks are all basically satisfied with the writing sections of their textbooks.NACE writing sections win the highest recognition of students. Students hold thatwriting strategy is stated clearly and the content design is closely related with theCET-4and CET-6in the NACE writing sections; The disadvantages of the NACEwriting sections are also reported, including the boring topics, complicated layout, toomuch tasks. In contrast, students argued the ICE writing sections have attractivetopics, clear layout, and focused on the writing strategies. What attracts the studentsthe most is the comics design in the writing sections to attract students; However, thedisadvantages are that the content is not exam-oriented and has no direct relation tothe CET-4and CET-6. In comparison, the ECE writing sections have a unique advantage, namely, its color printing, for which students no longer feel bored aboutthe writing sections. Other advantages of ECE writing sections include reader-friendlylayout design, different various tasks and more samples are also mentioned, with thedisadvantages like too many writing tasks, no connection with CET-4and CET-6, andunattractive topics.Thirdly, students’ expectations of writing sections are almost the same. As awhole, students’ needs mainly cover the following aspects: interesting topics,practicality, more writing samples and detailed sample analysis. Interesting topic iswhat students value the most. Students hope that topics in writing sections areconcerned with the theme of the unit, yet they do not like old-fashioned topics. Then,the practicality of the content ranks the second. The majority of students favor thecontent closely related to the CET-4and CET-6, because they put examination scoresas their top priority in English learning. The exam-oriented design in writingsections lead to clear learning objectives and motivate them to learn. More writingsamples and detailed sample analysis are the fundamental needs of students. All thethree textbooks’ writing sections have samples, but with no detailed analysis ofsamples. According to the students, writing samples alone are not sufficient; they needmore detailed sample analysis to help them understand the samples well.The implications of the findings are as follows:Firstly, writing sections should be paid great attention by EFL English teachers.It is not unusual that the teachers ignore the writing sections. How to promote theeffective use of writing sections is a major concern for textbook editor.Secondly，the content design in college English textbook writing sections shouldmeet the basic needs of students’ English learning, such as useful writing skills,writing samples, various genre and useful expressions. The English teachers couldinvestigate the students’ learning needs before class and design their teachingstrategies accordingly.Thirdly，as students value the topic in writing sections most, topics in writingsections should be as interesting as possible and closely related to students’ daily life.Opening writing topics are also welcomed in the writing sections.