A Comparative Analysis Of The Old Version And The New Version Of Go For It! For Eighth Grade

English plays a very important role in the stage of basic education.Junior high school is the key period of English teaching in this stage.During the three years of English teaching in junior high school,English for Eighth Grade occupies an unshakable position.On the one hand,it carries on English for Seventh Grade;on the other hand,it prepares for English for Ninth Grade.No matter which grade it is,English textbooks play a crucial role in English teaching,and the selection and use of appropriate English textbooks is an important prerequisite to achieve the teaching objectives and complete the teaching contents.Among so many versions of junior high school English textbooks,there’s a set of English books called Go for it!,which is published by People’s Education Press.Currently,it is the most widely used and the most influential set among all versions.This set of textbooks contains two versions:one is Compulsory Education Curriculum Standard Experimental Textbook of English(New Target):Go for it!(the old version),which was first published in 2001;the other is Compulsory Education Textbook of English:Go for it!(the new version),which was first published in 2012 on the basis of revising the old version.In this thesis,the author made a comparative analysis between the two versions of the textbooks for Eighth Grade from the aspects of their basic situation,structure arrangement and content selection.On this basis,the author also investigated the teachers and students who have used the old version and who are now using the new version through questionnaires and interviews,paying more attention to the users’ attitudes and opinions of the two versions.In this way,more feedback on how to use the textbooks flexibly as well as how to further revise and improve them could be provided.After the comparative analysis of the two versions of the textbooks and the investigation of the users,the author drew the following conclusions:(1)Basic situation,the size of the old version is too large,which is not convenient to carry.The line spacing of the appendix text represented by the tapescripts is too small,which is not convenient to take notes;the size of the new version is smaller than that of the old one,so it is more portable.The line spacing of the appendix text gets larger,which provides convenience for taking notes.(2)Structure arrangement:the contiguous units of the old version are not closely related to each other.There is a lack of suitable templates for oral English training.The listening materials are too simple.There is a lack of adequate reading and writing training.The exercises are set with too few questions and without corresponding difficulty gradient.The structure arrangement of the new version has stronger practicability,which is embodied in that the new version adjusted the order of each unit on the basis of the old version,making the contiguous units as logically related as possible,and the new version also provides appropriate templates for oral English training,as well as changes the over-single situation of old version’s listening materials.Meanwhile,the reading training and writing training of the new version are also far more than the old version,and the exercises are with difficulty gradient from Section A to Section B.(3)Content selection:the materials selected in the old version does not pay attention to the cultivation of students’ interest in English learning and cultural awareness,and it has a low fitting degree with students’ actual life;Compared with the old version,the new version attaches great importance to the cultivation of students’ cultural awareness.On the basis of the above conclusions,the author summarized the significance of the improvements which the new version has made based on the problems of the old version.At the same time,the enlightenment of using and revising the new version was also put forward in this study.Finally,the author put forward the limitations of this study and the prospects of the follow-up research,hoping that the future research can provide junior high school English teachers who are using this set of textbooks to teach with convenience of using the textbooks in a more scientific and effective way.