A Study Of Material Selection And Adaptation For College English Teaching

Nowadays, various English teaching materials flood in the market. There are materials compiled by Chinese experts and scholars in the foreign language field, as well as excellent materials introduced or produced under the joint effort of the educational and publishing fields home and abroad. However, a full theoretical system for material compiling has not yet formed in China, and there is not enough systematic criteria for material selection either. Original version of good teaching material introduced from English-speaking countries may not necessarily meet the needs of college students in China. In this case, it makes sense to investigate student's needs for textbook selection and adaptation, which is helpful for improving college English teaching. Therefore, by conducting a survey about student's needs and interviews with teachers, the paper puts forward some recommendations in terms of selecting and adapting teaching materials.The paper consists of six chapters. Chapter one mainly focuses on the background and the methodology of the study as well as the structure of the paper. Chapter two explores the theoretical background of material selection and adaptation, and fixes on student's needs. Chapter three introduces some basic research elements including participants, research questions, and methodology in which quantitative and qualitative data are collected in the form of questionnaire and interview. Chapter four analyzes the data with the help of EXCEL and SPSS, and elaborates on major findings of the research. Chapter five comes up with some tentative suggestions from two aspects– material selection and adaptation according to the research results. Chapter six summarizes the whole study and concludes the limitations of the present study and puts forward recommendations for future study.This paper will serve as references for material selection and shed lights on how teachers could adapt the teaching materials to classroom teaching and meet student's needs. However, the study has its limitations. As to what are the criteria for selecting teaching materials and how to make better use of the materials, decisions should be made with a thorough understanding and analysis of the practical situations.