A Case Study On The 30 Years' Development Of English Textbooks By People's Education Press In China's Basic Education

During the past three decades of China's reform and open up to the outside world, our education cause has achieved great leap-forward development under the leadership of the CPC and the centre government. The education system reform has also made substantial progress. Not only has the quality education been comprehensively implemented, but the national quality has distinctly been heightened and a fair education system has been strengthened persistently as well. The development of education in the 30 years has laid a solid foundation for the overall construction of a well-off society and our modernization.In school education, the textbook, as important resource, basis and main media, is the essential part of curriculum and the carrier to put curriculum into practice. It's also the embodiment of the nation will, national spirit, cultural traditions and the level of the subjects development, as well as the basic means of achieving cultivation targets. The last three decades have seen the development phases of recovery and reconstruction, reformation and innovation, and adjustment and deepening which our English textbooks for basic education have experienced. By reviewing historically, analyzing the texts, scanning status quo and demonstrating rationally, this dissertation deeply researches the development course, features of different phases and the evolving trend of the English textbooks for basic education since 1978, which has a significant theoretical value and practical sense for us to comprehend the essence of the foreign language courses for basic education, to practise new education conceptions and to optimize the practice of foreign language courses. By taking the methods of both text analysis and logical argumentation, the research focuses on textbooks published by People's Education Press to make analysis and review of the publishing settings, education conception and the textbook itself. It raises a panoramic discussion on the construction of the English textbooks for basic education since 1978, which makes up the deficiency of former researches merely confined to certain editions or school stages. It also raises the research level of foreign language textbooks, and even creates new research methods.The dissertation mainly consists of five parts.Chapter 1 Introduction. It gives an explanation of both the reasons for the topic selection and signification of the research. It also makes a general introduction to the research status, related references and the nature, methods and ideas of the research. Moreover, it makes definitions for the core and related concepts and divides the stages in past 30 years. Stage One, Nation-wide Textbooks (1978-1990); Stage Two, Sino-foreign Joint Textbooks (1988-2000); Stage Three, New Curriculum Textbooks (2000-).Chapter 2,3 and 4 are the main body of the dissertation. Each chapter deals with a stage and writes as the following. First, it analyses the publishing settings, the leading education concepts and guiding documentation i.e. syllabuses and curriculum standards. Secondly, it reviews the editing and publishing process, and it foreshadows the later analysis and comments. Finally, by using text analytical method, it puts forward proper analysis and comments on the textbooks in each stage from the angle of theoretical basis, structural system, discourse, linguistic knowledge and language abilities, together with some comments.Chapter 5 makes a general introduction to the progress of the 30 years'construction of the English textbooks in China's basic education, raises reflection or discussion on the existent problems and limitations and makes a prospect of the development trend.The conclusion makes reflections on the research limitation and sets a greater target for the future research.