| The current study is a collection of three publishable articles addressing a similar theme. Each article is an examination into the role textbooks play in Chinese English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms and, specifically, a look at textbooks as an element in the classroom environment, their relationship to pressures from high-stakes exams, and an exploration into any paradigms about the nature of EFL learning they may be explicitly or implicitly promoting through their content and methodologies. The first article, a grounded theory look at underlying methodologies and ideologies in common Chinese textbooks, reveals that there may be competing paradigms promoted by different texts that could be sending conflicting messages about the nature of EFL study. The second article, a critical discourse analysis of textbooks as items of cultural discourse, finds that subtle wording and structure in common textbooks could be reinforcing ideologies of the dominant paradigm about English study. The third and final article again uses grounded theory to compare the content of a common textbook series to passages from the national college entrance exam and to goals of the national syllabus to suggest that while in several aspects, the textbook series is in harmony with stated educational standards, there are certain ways in which the textbook and the exam seem to be misaligned in their goals and structure. |
