A Comparative Analysis Of Reading Materials In Two High School English Textbooks: NSEC And SEC

English textbooks are the main resources for English teaching and learning in primary and middle schools.Against the background of subject core competencies,English reading is particularly relevant as a major way for students to improve their language ability,learning ability,thinking capacity,and cultural awareness.Besides,reading materials are an important source for promoting students’ language knowledge and developing their language skills.Therefore,the evaluation of reading materials in English textbooks matters a lot.Since 2020,SEC(short for Senior English for China,published by People’s Education Press in 2019)has been put into use in many provinces,which has attracted the attention of researchers and teachers.This thesis provides a comparative evaluation of reading materials in SEC and NSEC(short for New Senior English for China,published by People’s Education Press in 2007)according to Cheng and Sun’s(2011)evaluation model,Cunningsworth’s(1995)checklist of reading materials,and General Senior High School Curriculum Standards(English,2017).This study mainly consists of two aspects:(1)Internal evaluation is conducted from eight dimensions:readability,length,topic,genre,culture,vocabulary,grammar,and reading activity through a combination of traditional and corpus-based textual analysis;(2)External evaluation is carried out through a combination of questionnaires with students and interviews with teachers to gain their views on the reading materials in the two editions of textbooks.The results of the internal evaluation show that:(1)In terms of readability,both versions of textbooks fail to follow the learning rule from being easy to difficult in terms of the unit design.As for the difference,in SEC,reading texts are more difficult on the whole,with the difficulty level more suitable for high school language learners,showing a smaller change but failing to increase with the grade level.(2)In terms of length,in SEC,reading texts are slightly shorter,of a more reasonable length,and follow the trend of becoming longer as the grade level increases.(3)In terms of topic,both cover a wide range of topics with the largest proportion of thematic context of‘Man and society’,followed by ‘Man and nature’ and finally ‘Man and self’,and with two thematic clusters ‘History,society and culture’ and ‘Literature,art and sports’ predominantly represented,and both have a similar input order of thematic clusters.The difference lies in the fact that SEC broadens the thematic meaning of the text and incorporates the latest elements.(4)In terms of genre,both cover a wide range of genres with a large proportion of narrative and expository texts,followed by practical texts,but neglect the argumentation.The difference is that SEC adds genres that are close to learners’ daily lives,such as the new media discourse.(5)In terms of culture,both emphasize the target culture,neglect the comparative culture,and have a similar proportion of the international culture.Regarding differences,SEC focuses more on the source culture but pays less attention to other cultures.(6)In terms of vocabulary,both have an appropriate amount of basic vocabulary.As for the difference,SEC has more satisfactory coverage of basic words.(7)In terms of grammar,both follow a certain sequence from low to high levels in the presentation of grammar items,and focus more on the meaning dimension in terms of grammar exercises.As for the difference,SEC shows more proper repetition of grammar items,an increase in the percentage of meaning and use dimensions regarding grammar exercises,but a lack of continuity in the presentation of grammar points.(8)In terms of reading activity,both cover three levels of reading activities and highlight the integrated use of language skills.About the difference,SEC provides more explicit and adequate guidance on reading strategies and adds more diverse reading activities.The results of the external evaluation indicate that:(1)Students using SEC hold more positive attitudes towards their textbooks.(2)Teachers are generally more satisfied with SEC.Based on these findings,feasible suggestions are provided for teachers to adapt to the new textbook and for textbook compilers to further optimize the materials so as to promote high school English teaching and learning.