An Evaluation On Look Ahead Series From Users' Perspective

Teaching material is one of the most important components in foreign language teaching. Choosing and using a suitable textbook is an important prerequisite for completing the teaching contents and achieving the teaching goals. The textbook evaluation can not only offer reference to the education administration in choosing textbooks but also provide suggestions for the compilers to revise textbooks. Moreover, it can help teachers to adapt or adjust the textbook in the course of teaching.Look Ahead is a series of textbooks compiled according to English levels of European Union, which is the result of collaboration of Longman Publishing Company, Cambridge University Press, BBC English and the British Council. Generally, textbooks are compiled by experts and scholars, and textbook evaluation, as an important means for textbook revision and improvement, is also carried out by experts and scholars. Teachers and students, as the direct users of textbooks, rarely participate in textbook evaluation. However, different from other textbook evaluation, this study chooses the students and teachers from Chongqing Foreign Language School as subjects. Under the theoretical framework of Cunningsworth's and Cheng Xiaotang's textbook evaluation, an impressionistic overview of the currently widely-used English textbook Look Ahead Series is firstly conducted to investigate whether Look Ahead Series meets the requirements of English Curriculum Standards, followed by an in-depth evaluation on the basis of questionnaires, interview and classroom observation with the aim to investigate whether this textbook can meet both students'and teachers'needs. It also aims to find out the merits and demerits of the series in use and the deviation between design and implementation of the textbook.Based on the data, the thesis has got the following major findings:firstly, Look Ahead Series meets the requirement of English Curriculum Standards in general, which aims at developing students'integrative language skills and cultivating students' abilities of using English to communicate. Secondly, it basically meets the needs of students and teachers and contributes to improving students'listening, speaking, reading and writing effectively. Thirdly, there are also some problems such as the amount of vocabulary is large; the listening material is difficult, and so on. There are some solutions to the problems:on the one hand, it is the duty of the textbook producers to make some revisions so that there is a clear distinction between what is primary and what is secondary and also make more leeway for both students and teachers in use. On the other hand, the teachers'modifying of Look Ahead Series should be advocated so as to minister to their special teaching contexts. Teachers should also actively embrace the advanced educational theories. It is hoped that teachers can reap some insights into the evaluation of ELT textbooks so that to lay a foundation for their creative and critical using the textbook and their own professional development.