A Comparative Evaulaiton Of Three Sets Of College English Textbooks

Textbook plays an important role in the context of English language teaching and learning in China. With the constant revision of syllabus, many textbooks are published to meet the requirements of the syllabus. The availability of so many textbooks poses a great challenge for those who select and use the textbooks.This thesis attempted to make a comparison and evaluation of three textbooks that are widely used in colleges and universities throughout China. They are: New College English, 21 st Century English and New Horizon English. Some important aspects are being compared and evaluated.Chapter one begins with a discussion of the background of the evaluation. The working context and the profile of student are presented to set this research against the specific teaching context. For any research separated from its context is meaningless. This is followed by an examination of various issues in the evaluations. the purpose of the evaluation;the criteria for evaluation are also revealed.Chapter two deals with different types of syllabuses that are influential for textbook design. Then the national syllabus of 1999 is explored for it provides guidelines for the design of the textbooks.Chapter three mainly focuses on the components of the textbooks. Through this part we can get a general idea of the three textbooks and see whether the packages are comprehensive or not. Another area that will be looked into is the table of contents which should be designed for the convenient reference of both teachers and students. Also included in this part is whether the textbooks give consideration for independent study. It is the opinion of the author that becoming independent learners and learning to learn are very important skills that students need to survive in nowadays society. Textbooks should in some degree help to foster learning independence and help students to prepare for their future life and study.Chapter four focuses on the four skills. The selection of the reading materials and the difficulty level of the materials are checked in detail. Through the analysis of the readabilityof the texts in NHE and 21 st we can see clearly that they are randomly put together instead of being graded by difficulty. The way the textbooks handle the four skills and the related activities are analysed to see if they are conducive for the students. Vocabulary is the basis and also the bottleneck for the development of the four skills. Due attention is also given to it.Chapter five concerns itself with the teacher's book. In the Chinese context, teacher's book plays an important role in training teachers and in guiding teachers in the teaching practice. A good teacher's book can enable teachers to grasp the teaching process and get familiar with some effective teaching activities. Besides, a good teacher's book should help the teacher to become the master of textbook and use textbook flexibly.By means of evaluation we can gain deep insight into the textbooks. This will help us choose the one that best fits the specific teaching context.