The Analysis And Evaluation Of Project English For Grade Eight Under Cheng Xiaotang’s Evaluation System

As an important element of teaching and a carrier of learning,textbooks have a task of achieving the overall goal of English learning.National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education（The 2011 version）clearly states that the overall goal of the English curriculum in compulsory education is to develop students’ preliminary comprehensive language competence,promote their mental development and improve their humanistic literacy through English learning.With the proposal of the policy of “multiple books for one standard” in China,different versions of English textbooks have emerged.Therefore,it is of great importance to choose a suitable one for English learning.Based on Needs Analysis and Cheng Xiaotang’ s Textbook Evaluation System,this study evaluated and analyzed Project English for Grade Eight in terms of both internal evaluation and external evaluation.From the perspective of internal evaluation,Project English for Grade Eight was analyzed from three aspects: the guiding ideology of textbook compilation,the distribution of contents,and the authenticity of language materials with reference to NECS（2011）.On the basis of Needs Analysis,the external evaluation of the textbook was studied from three dimensions of users’ evaluation of the general information of the textbook,its content,and its suitableness,which was designed according to teaching materials evaluation sheets extracted by Cheng Xiaotang and Sun Xiaohui in the book The Analysis and Design of English Teaching Materials.And 205 students and 20 teachers of Grade Eight in a middle school in Hubei province were investigated so as to understand their use of Project English for Grade Eight in this school.The research questions are as follows:1)With reference to internal evaluation,to what extent does Project English for Grade Eight meet the requirements of NECS?2)With reference to external evaluation,to what extent does Project English for Grade Eight meet the actual needs of teachers and students?The study shows that,from the perspective of internal evaluation,Project English for Grade Eight generally meets the curriculum content requirements of NECS,reflecting the ideas of English learning and teaching methods advocated by NECS.Besides,the content of materials in this set of textbooks is arranged in a progressive manner and the themes are close to students’ lives and the layout is flexible,while it focuses on the integration of language knowledge and knowledge application in authentic contexts.From the point of view of external evaluation,Project English for Grade Eight generally meets the needs of teachers and students.However,some shortcomings still are worth noting in this textbook,such as out-of-date materials,large vocabulary,and large difficulty of activities.Based on the above findings,the author puts forward some suggestions for the users and compilers of textbooks,in order to help teachers make better use of textbooks while teaching,and promote English teaching efficiency and level.